


The Easiest Way

by nntkiwff



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Extremely Slow Burn, Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Magic, Multi, Pararibulitis (Dirk Gently), Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), Running away from your problems, backstories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-03-21 19:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13747578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nntkiwff/pseuds/nntkiwff
Summary: Picking up during the last episode of season two, dealing with all of the questions left unanswered."So, The Boy was in Blackwing the whole time, and you've actually known him since you were a boy. The jacket is Mona, who is another Blackwing victim, and who also got you out of Blackwing, which is currently being run by Ken, Bart's friend, who fixed Patrick Spring's time machine in Seattle. In Wendimoor Amanda and Todd turned Pararibulitis into magical powers, and now Amanda has gone to find the rest of the people like you before Blackwing can, because the fabric of the universe is coming apart. Is that everything?""Yes, essentially," Dirk says, as Todd is saying, "I don't have magic powers."





	1. An Easy One

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a hand,  
> so I've got a fist,  
> so I've got a plan, it's the best that I can do,  
> now you'll say it's in God's hands,  
> but God doesn't always have the best goddamn plans

**Todd**

* * *

 

The Amboolents, despite it's childish intent, has no medical equipment. What it does have is a back seat, where Farah now lay, and a lot of space in the rear, where Tina and Hobbs are trying not to roll into each other as Todd shuttles them to the Hospital at 100 mph. It also has a siren.

"Where's Dirk?" Farah moans from behind him.

"Still in Wendimoor with Amanda. I think." He passes the mile marker that Hobbbs told him to look out for and glances in the rear-view. "Hobbs, I just passed the marker, where now?"

"Stay in the middle lane. You'll see the signs soon."

Hobbs' voice is as weak as Farah's. They're all chalky-pale, bleeding into the upholstery and paneling, and Todd is definitely coming down from his we-solved-it high. He wonders whether they'll ever be allowed to just enjoy it. He spares another glance in the rear-view. Farah's eyes are drifting closed.

He sees the sign for the Hospital.

"Stay conscious guys, okay? Farah? Tina? You good?"

Tina flashes a thumbs-up, but says nothing. Farah does not respond. Todd floors it, despite the fact that he's already flooring it, and counts the seconds until he rips into the Emergency Drop-Off. He cuts the siren and jumps out of the van, calling for help as he circles to the rear door and opens it. Dragging Tina out as gently as possible, he half-carries her into the Emergency room and yells at the first nurse he sees.

"There's two more people bleeding out in my van!"

He wishes he sounded less crazed. 

Somebody takes Tina out of his arms, and they seem to know her name, of course they do, and he leads the nurse back out to the van with his heart pounding painfully in his chest -- when she sees the "Amboolents" she stops long enough to give Todd a very strange look, but calls for stretchers anyways. Todd watches uselessly while strangers load Farah and Hobbs onto them. When he tries to follow them in, the nurse stops him and nods at the van.

"You gotta move that." She says. He stares at her. She stares back. He makes a frustrated noise. 

He brings the car into the parking lot and parks across two spaces, not bothering to pay for the space before sprinting back towards the E.R. There is panic rising in his chest, and his brain is spitting sparks down his arms and legs. 

"Not now," he tells himself, "not now, not now --"

"Todd?"

He almost runs right past Dirk, who is standing in the E.R door in his yellow jacket, looking confused. Small, brief relief surges in his chest. "Dirk, thank God." He says, or thinks, or both. He half hugs, half drags Dirk towards the interior of the building.

"Alright, Todd, alright --" Dirk stumbles and Todd remembers he's also been shot.

"Fuck, sorry, fuck, you're shot too."

Another nurse has spotted them, she shouts, "One more gunshot victim!", and she's draping Dirk's arm around her shoulder, and Todd's lungs are not doing their job anymore.

"What do you mean another? Where's Farah, Todd?"

Panic. He tries to answer but his lungs are frozen, and his nerves are going haywire. He feels his pockets desperately, hoping for some pills, some cat medication that will keep his brain from trying to kill him, but they're gone. The nurse is trying to put Dirk in a wheelchair but Dirk is peering at Todd with distinct concern. He turns to the nurse. 

"Do you know what Parariulitis is?" And to her perplexed expression he advises, "I would suggest that you look it up quickly, because I believe my friend is about to have an attack."

Todd doesn't have time to be grateful, as his lungs, fingers, and toes are frozen solid. He drops to the floor, unable to scream, and reality begins to fade out of his peripherals. He catches a glimpse of Amanda, but she's in a car, no, she's -- a needle finds his abdomen and everything stops.

 

* * *

 

In his dream he's behind the veil again. All of creation is laid out above him. Unwanting. Unbiased.

 

* * *

 

The moment consciousness touches him, a million thoughts crowd themselves into his mind -- Farah shot, hospital, where's Amanda, Dirk -- he sits bolt upright with a gasp, hands coming into contact with sticky upholstery as he pushes himself up. A glance around tells him that he's in the back seat of the Amboolents. Through the windshield he can see a long road stretching out in front of them, lit in the orange hue of the streetlights. Dirk's jacket is draped over his shoulders.

"Dirk?"

From the front seat comes a startled noise, and the car veers suddenly as Dirk twists in his seat to peer over his shoulder. Relief is etched plainly over his features. Todd has to grab the headrest in front of him to keep from being thrown onto the floor.

"Eyes on the road!"

With an apologetic sound, Dirk turns forward. "I'm glad you're awake," he says, and he certainly sounds it. "I was beginning to worry."

"What happened?"

"You had an attack, so they sedated you." Dirk glances back again. His hands are ashy pale on the steering wheel in front of him. "They wanted to keep you overnight, but I, uh, convinced them to release you to my custody."

Todd rolls his shoulders, flexes his fingers, checks himself over. He doesn't seem to have incured any lasting injuries from the entire showdown in Wendimoor, which seems far too lucky to be true. Almost executed, sure, but it was a far cry better than being electrocuted. In his opinion.

"Convinced them how?"

"Amanda showed up shortly after you went unconscious, and the Rowdy 3 created a diversion while she and I, ah, reasoned with the nurses." He pauses as Todd climbs between the front seats to join him. "How do you feel?"

"I'm fine," Todd says, though he's still a little shaky. "Where's Amanda now?"

"She said she and the Rowdies had some quote-unquote 'work to do' after she helped me load you in the van, she's very strong by the way, and after she left I had the feeling that we needed to get out of there quite urgently."

"What about Farah?" Todd realizes all at once that they are many, many miles out of Bergsberg. "Wait, Dirk, did you leave her behind?"

Dirk looks uncomfortable and guilty. A gut-wrenching anger fills Todd's chest.

"What was I supposed to do, Todd, storm the entire hospital until I found her? Tear her away from medical attention? Medical attention which she probably needed quite badly, if your reaction is any indication of the severity of her condition, which, by the way, I'm still in the dark on, so, please, spare me the guilt trip. Today has been a long day."

Todd has to agree with him there, so despite the feeling in his chest calling for them to turn around right now and go back for her, he takes a deep breath and steadies himself. When he feels that he'll be able to speak without anger, he tells Dirk what happened.

"She got shot in the stomach and the shoulder."

Dirk's eyes go wide, the light from the streetlights illuminating his expression for only a second at a time. "By who? The Mage was magic, not guns! Not guns in this world, at least. He didn't carry a gun!"

"It's a whole... thing," Todd repeats Farah's words. "I think they all shot each other, like, the Mage made them."

Dirk looks incredibly concerned, and a mean part of Todd thinks 'good'. He buries that part as he realizes Dirk's thigh is wrapped in white gauze and remembers for the second time that Dirk, too, had been shot.

"What about you?" He says. "What about your leg? Are you okay?"

Grimacing, Dirk half-shrugs. "Amanda helped me bandage it, but it's... it's quite painful, actually, and I have been driving on it for... four hours now."

"Oh my god, dude, stop, I can drive," Todd urges, and Dirk looks grateful.

They pull over and swap places, Todd helping Dirk limp around the front of the car to the passenger seat. Up close his face is pale and dirty, and Todd now feels guilty for trying to make him feel guilty. The weight of the events of the day are beginning to settle onto his shoulders, and they're pretty heavy.

Once they're back on the road, they lapse into silence. Todd glances at Dirk and finds him looking out the window, his face pulled into the same sombre expression he'd been wearing lately, full of the existential pain. He tries to think of something to say, but can't find the energy. It doesn't end up mattering, anyways, because within twenty minutes Dirk has fallen asleep with his forehead pressed against the glass. Todd reaches into the back for his jacket and drapes it over him.

 

* * *

 

"What are you doing?"

Dirk's voice cuts through his reverie. His eyes snap open. It's daytime, and Dirk is standing in front of him, jacketless, weight shifted onto his left leg. Todd hadn't heard him get out of the car.

"I'm trying to shadow walk into Amanda's life," he answers honestly. He's sitting on an old crate in a dusty barnyard. They'd stopped only a few hours before, but Todd hadn't been able to sleep. After parking the Amboolents behind a half-caved barn he'd tried to shut his eyes, but it seemed like an alarm was going off in his mind every time he did, so he'd decided to get out and try to contact Amanda instead. With his brain. It wasn't going well.

"How did you sleep?" 

"Terribly," Dirk says. He limps closer and drops down next to Todd. "So, what's next?"

Todd shoots him an uneasy look. He'd been hoping that Dirk would be able to answer precisely that question when he woke up. In the daylight, he's definitely looking a little worse for the wear, the lines of his face drawn into an uncomfortable expression which reminds Todd that he's been going on twelve hours with a bullet wound and no pain killers.

"Well," he says slowly, "unless you have any kind of inkling otherwise, I say we go back for Farah."

He expects Dirk to argue, to point out that Blackwing is more than likely waiting for them, that they couldn't possibly, but instead what he does is nod slowly, evidently thinking. Then he makes a frustrated noise.

"To be honest with you, Todd, I am experiencing a great deal of dread at the thought of returning to Bergsberg, but I don't think it's a psychic type of dread."

There's a lilt to his voice that piques Todd's concern, but, just like the night before, he can't bring himself to address it. It may be selfish, but he wants to pretend everything is okay, or at least sort of okay, for a little while. He wants to pretend that solving the case meant something, that somehow their situation is better than before.

"Just regular dread, then," he says. "That's manageable. I've also got a considerable amount of dread, but --"

"But we can't leave Farah," Dirk finishes for him, sounding equal parts guilty and determined.

Todd stands and extends a hand, which Dirk takes, and leans on Todd all the way back to the car.

 

* * *

 

Two hours later, they're two thirds of the way back to Bergsberg. Todd is doing 80 in a 60 zone with one eye on the road and another on the rear-view, on the perpetual look out for traffic patrollers. The irony of fleeing Bergsberg only to turn around and rush straight back in isn't lost on him, but the thought of driving away without Farah is too horrible to even consider. After all they'd been through together, she's like... one of his limbs. A part of him. 

Another, more pressing issue is making itself gradually clearer as the needle on the gas indicator makes it way rapidly towards the little red 'E'. Francis obviously hadn't been too concernced with gas milage when he conjured up their getaway vehcle, Todd thinks, and when sees a gas station looming in the distance, he's sure that they can't afford to pass it by.

Dirk is curled into himself in the passenger seat, asleep again. His hands are fisted under his chin, his lips pressed into a thin line, his brow furrowed. Todd has been watching his friend's expression become slowly more troubled for the last hour, wondering at what point he should wake him up and relieve him from whatever his mind is showing him. Glad to have a firm reason beyond 'hey, you look grumpy', he reaches out and shakes Dirk's shoulder gently.

"Dirk, hey. Wake up."

Much like Todd's awakening the day before, Dirk sits bolt upright, his hands coming up to bat Todd's arm away.

"It's okay, man," Todd assures him, "it's just me."

"Right," Dirk's voice is scratched with sleep, "yes, car, Todd. Right."

Todd gives him a moment, deciding not to ask what he'd been dreaming about. "Do you have any money? We need to stop for gas."

Dirk gives him a scathing look, which Todd doesn't feel he deserves. "No, Todd, I'm sorry, but they didn't provide me with an allowance at Blackwing, and, if you'll recall, the benefactor of our last case didn't exactly pay us."

Todd scowls, about to reaffirm that they will need gas very soon when Dirk goes 'ah, of course' and begins to wrestle out of his jacket. He tosses it into the back seat and turns to look at it. "Mona, would you mind being a human briefly?"

Todd glances into the rear view and swerves two lanes over as the space that was the jacket morphs into a girl.

"What in the fuck --"

"Todd, this is Mona Wilder, of broke-me-out-of-Blackwing fame, my old friend and, quite conveniently, a shapeshifter. Mona, this is Todd, my best friend and assistant."

"Hi, Todd." Mona's voice is unnecessarily ethereal. "It's nice to finally meet you."

Todd feels significantly less casual about the introduction than he thinks they do. He tries to make himself say hello, but what comes out is: "How long have you been that jacket!?"

Dirk looks affronted, but Mona answers in the same gentle tone. "I have been that jacket for one day."

Before Todd can clarify, Dirk clears his throat. "Mona, I was wondering if you could be a credit card."

Todd uses his hazards to pull over to the side of the road, feeling that the conversation at hand requires his full concentration. Behind him, Mona makes a delighted sound.

"Oh, I've never thought to be a credit card before. What would that be like?"

"Well, you'd have to be... a computer chip, which can access a bank account. Preferably a strangers, preferably a different stranger every time. It would require you to be a little more intelligent than a jacket, I'm afraid, but not exactly conscious."

Todd looks between them as Mona thinks, feeling the familiar bewilderment of keeping up with Dirk's significantly supernatural life. He's having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that Dirk had been _wearing_ her. 

"Yes, I think I can do that." Mona says, smiling. "It would be a new adventure."

Dirk looks around expectantly, making a face which in Todd's experience means 'there, look, I've solved it'. Todd thinks briefly of arguing, but instead turns his hazards off and drives them the rest of the way to the gas station, where he fills up the tank and takes Mona-the-credit-card out of the back seat where she has transformed again. Nervously, he leaves Dirk in the car and goes to pay. In line he rehearses his getaway, in case Dirk's plan doesn't work, but when he taps Mona against the machine the light is green.

On the way out he spots the pay-as-you-go phones and stops. He grabs five, counting them off in his head, then gets back in line. At the last moment, he grabs some sandwiches from the refrigerated section.

He grins at Dirk as he gets back in the car, thrusting a sandwich at him. "Well Dirk, I hate to tell you, but you're a genius."

Dirk takes the sandwich, looking smug. While unwrapping his own sandwich, Todd tosses Mona-the-credit-card into Dirk's lap, where she almost immediately resumes being Mona-the-jacket. Todd pretends he does not find this creepy, shoves the sandwich into his mouth almost whole, and puts the car back into drive. As the sun reaches its peak in the sky, he pulls them back onto the freeway.

The rest of the drive is uneventful. Todd goes well over the speed limit, but they hardly pass another car the whole time. When they're around half an hour away from the hospital, he glances over at Dirk, who has resumed being uncharacteristically quiet and is staring out the window intently.

Todd opens his mouth to ask if Dirk feels anything wicked this way coming, but instead he finds himself giving a strangled yelp as a big, black truck swerves out of the forest onto the road ahead of them, honking madly. It takes all of five seconds to recognize it as the Rowdie's. When they pull over onto the shoulder, Todd follows suit.

Amanda jumps out of the van, beckoning, and Todd gets out to meet her in the space between their vehicles.

"Blackwing swept the town," she says without preamble. "They were at the hospital, but they didn't take Farah."

"What?"

"I don't know. The guys could smell those slimy fucks all night, but this morning they retreated to this old house in the back country. That rainbow beast showed up last night after you guys left and we spent half the night chasing her around, trying to pick her up before they did."

The bottom of Todd's stomach seems to drop out. He looks over his shoulder at Dirk, who is peering at them out the windshield. "What should we do? If they're waiting for Dirk to come back..."

Amanda looks appropriately sympathetic, chewing her lip and peering past Todd at Dirk, who gives her a short wave. "You may have a few hours at the most. The guys think the house is distracting most of them, but... they want to get out of here."

"You should," Todd says, "Blackwing aren't gonna leave Bergsberg, not now that they've got the Cardenas house, and they're not gonna stop looking. Take this." He pulls one of the burners out of his pocket and presses it into her hand. "I programmed it with my number, and Farah and Dirk's."

Amanda takes the phone and pockets it. "We'll follow you guys to the hospital and keep watch."

"What? No, you should leave --"

"Do you honestly think you can take Blackwing alone?" Amanda scoffs. "Dirk can't even walk properly. You need us, man."

For a few moments Todd searches for a reason to argue with her, and she watches him with eyebrows raised. Finally he sighs, knowing by now not to tell his sister what she can or can't do. She seems to sense her victory and changes topics, nodding at the Amboolents.

"Do you have a mattress in there yet?"

Unable to help himself, Todd snorts. "No, sorry, we're not all living in an 80's grunge porno." He says. She punches him in the shoulder.

"Well, it's a hell of a lot more comfortable than sleeping on the floor. Farah's gonna need somewhere to rest. Dirk said she was shot?"

Todd nods, and Amanda frowns deeply. Resolve steels over him, and he pulls her in for a quick hug. "Okay. We'll lead the way. Stay safe."

"You too, bro." She says, and pulls away.

Todd watches her get back into the van before returning to the Amboolents, where Dirk is waiting expectantly.

"You were right about leaving town," Todd says, and Dirk looks immediately vindicated. "Blackwing swept it overnight. Apparently they know where Farah is but they haven't taken her."

Dirk's brow creases. "Why not?"

"I don't know. But we need to go get her, and then we need to get the hell out of here."

 

* * *

 

On their way to the hospital, they rob someone's house. Or, Amanda and Todd rob a house while Dirk and the Rowdies keep watch outside. The Rowdies had been very disappointed to be excluded, but Todd was firm about only robbing and no destroying. Though it's hardly the worst thing he's ever done, he still feels extremely guilty as Amanda helps him drag a double mattress out the front door and load it into the back of the Amboolents.

They go back for the couch cushions per Amanda's suggestion, and Todd follows her lead. It seems in her two months on the run she's gathered more than a few skills, and he finds himself equal parts concerned and impressed. She raids the kitchen and the medicine cabinet, finding Percocet, T3, Xanax, and an antipsychotic for hallucination which Todd pockets. In a stroke of brilliance he raids a bedroom dresser and changes into a t-shirt and jeans that he finds there, tossing his old clothes in the back of the van with everything else. He'd love to shower, too, but he figures that's probably pushing his luck, so he and Amanda head back out to the front yard.

When Todd climbs back into the driver's seat, Dirk looks antsy rather than miserable.

"I'm having a feeling," he says before Todd can speak, and then, before Todd can ask, "We need to go to the hospital now, like now-now."

With that, Todd rips the car out of this poor stranger's lawn, back onto the road, and heads to the hospital with Dirk shouting instructions -- mostly unnecessarily -- from the passenger side. They enter the parking lot from the rear-most entrance and park behind a dumpster, though the dumpster doesn't cover the growl of the Rowdies van pulling in behind them, or of Amanda yelling at them as they get out of the car.

"We'll stay out front and watch for the brigade, you guys be quick!"

Todd is half way to the entrance before he realizes that Dirk isn't following him. He looks around, catching sight of his gangly friend limping the other way, towards the back of the hospital, and re-adjusts his trajectory. Though handicapped, Dirk is walking with the determination of a man with a plan -- which is to say, a Dirk with a hunch -- and Todd is immeasurably glad. _Can't be a trap_ , he thinks, _if Dirk is walking right into it_. Then he suddenly feels anxious again.

As he reaches Dirk he grabs his right arm and drapes it over his shoulders, helping Dirk pick up the pace.

"You're the perfect height for this," Dirk says as they round the corner of the building. Todd doesn't bother to be offended.

Dirk stops abruptly, almost causing Todd to fall over as he pulls him closer to the wall. Within a heartbeat, a door ahead of them opens. A hospital employee steps out, and Todd holds his breath while she uses a loose brick to prop the door open. She steps away from them and lights a cigarette. He glances at Dirk, who makes a 'stay' gesture with his free hand. They wait, the seconds ticking by painfully, then -- the woman's phone rings. She digs it out of her pocket, turning away from the door, momentarily distracted, and Dirk practically throws himself forwards, dragging Todd along with him. They slip into the stairwell while she paces away from them, and Todd breathes a sigh of relief.

Dirk, however, is gazing at the stairs with an averse expression.

"Of course," he says with clear bitterness. "It can't even be a bloody elevator, completely useless..."

He continues muttering as they begin to ascend the stairs together, and Todd lets him get it out of his system. The second floor reads 'Cardiology and Intensive Care', so they keep climbing. The third reads 'Inpatients, Recovery'. Dirk seems to know before they read it.

"Down here."

They slip into the hallway. It's completely deserted. Todd ducks out from under Dirk's arm, leaving him to lean against the wall, and darts up the fluorescent-lit corridor, checking the charts on the doors. Half-way to the end, his heart jumps into his throat as he reads _Black, Farah_ on the chart for room 309.

"This is them," he whisper-yells to Dirk, who staggers forward.

He can hear a nurse approaching as Dirk reaches him, and they fall into the hospital room the way they fall into many things, narrowly avoiding discovery and capture. On the other side, the wide eyes of Farah, Tina, and Hobbs fall onto them. At the sight of them, something bright bursts in Todd's chest, and he forgets momentarily that they're still probably in danger.

"You're okay!" He says, at the same time that Tina is saying "You're alive!" and Farah is saying "What the hell are you doing here?"

Todd rushes forward, hugging both Hobbs and Tina and moving towards Farah before he catches sight of her expression. Though he's not sure what he'd been expecting, rage certainly isn't it.

"What happened to your leg, Dirk?" Hobbs is asking behind him.

Just like he had with Todd, Dirk half-shrugs. He's still leaning against the door, either for security or stability.

"I was shot by a man who once fixed a time machine for me," he says, which Hobbs seems to appreciate, and Todd becomes aware that he hasn't actually asked Dirk what had happened when he returned to Blackwing yet.

"What are you guys doing here?" Farah hisses again, and Dirk looks perplexed.

"We came to rescue you, isn't it obvious?"

"Are you insane?" For some reason, she's speaking directly to Todd. "Blackwing knows I'm here! They could be --"

"Amanda and the Rowdies are outside keeping watch," Todd tries to be soothing, but it doesn't work.

"Oh, great, you brought them, too, why don't we just serve them every bodies head on a platter?"

There's an uncomfortable silence in which Dirk makes a troubled face, and Tina looks between Farah and Todd uncertainly. Todd is speechless, caught between feeling victimized and understanding Farah's point, but mostly wishing she was half as happy to see him as he is to see her.

"I'm glad you guys are okay," Tina says lamely into the tension. It breaks the spell and Todd, remembering the burner in his pocket, digs it out.

"Here, take this," he passes it to her. She takes it. "I've programmed it with all three of our numbers, so we can keep in touch."

An odd expression flickers over her face as she looks down at it.

"Where are you guys gonna go?"

"Far away," Dirk says from the door. "And quickly," he adds with urgency that is clearly intended for Todd.

Farah still looks mad, so Todd raises his eyebrows at her.

"Are you coming or not?" He asks.

"She's coming," Dirk answers for her.

"I'm going to need a wheelchair to get anywhere," she says.

Dirk peers out the small window in the door before pulling it open and limping back into the hall. Todd, not willing to let him out of his sight, rushes out in pursuit. They only go as far as across the hall, where Dirk lets himself into another room, in which an older woman is sleeping. There's a wheelchair there. Dirk takes it. Todd has stopped feeling the impact of coincidence, but this is a little much.

Back in her room, Farah is picking at her I.V, and Todd tries not to flinch as he watches her slowly extracts it from the skin of her hand. Steadied by the wheelchair, Dirk limps over to her, and Todd joins them to help her sit up, help her slip off the edge of the bed and into the wheelchair.

"Bandages," she says, through gritted teeth, and he riffles through the cupboard for gauze, rubbing alcohol, medical tape, and dumps it all into her lap. It's time to leave.

They stop, the three of them surveying Tina and Hobbs. Tina's eyes are full of tears.

"I love you guys," she says, and Todd's heart lurches. For the first time, he considers that they, Tina and Hobbs, are being left behind.

"We love you too," he says, and Dirk nods. "I don't think we'll ever be able to repay you for everything you did for us."

"Don't be silly," Hobbs says. "You don't owe us anything. Just stay safe."

"You can come with us," Dirk blurts. Everyone turns to him. "I can find more wheelchairs. You can come with us."

For a moment, as Tina's face lights up, Todd thinks they will accept. Then Hobbs shakes his head.

"Somebody has to keep an eye on what's going on around here. You guys get going now. We'll talk soon."

With that, Dirk walks them right out of the room and into the elevator. When they get to the lobby, everyone is conveniently looking the other way. There's a pair of crutches leaning against the wall in the waiting room, and as Dirk wheels Farah out the door, Todd grabs them.

 

* * *

 

Once they load Farah into the van and get back on the road, her anger seems to dissipate. It may just be exhaustion, but she gives Todd a vaguely apologetic look as he hands her the T3s, so he considers the hatchet buried. For now, at least.

They stop in the woods, on one of the many escarpments overlooking Bergsberg, and wait for Amanda. Farah objects weakly, but Dirk tells her everything is fine, and she seems to believe him. By the time the Rowdies and Amanda catch up to them -- which takes longer because, apparently, they stopped for jackets along the way -- Farah is drifting off in the back of the Amboolents.

Saying goodbye to his sister again is hard, but softer for the feeling that it's only goodbye for now, for the feeling that is slowly starting to creep up from his feet, the feeling that they've dodged trouble, they've gotten away with it. As he watches her, her four vampires, and the rainbow beast drive away, he finds that he's not so worried about her.

Dirk, too, seems significantly cheered now that they are leaving Bergsberg. They lean against the hood of the Amboolents, savouring this moment of safety, and Todd can't resist the joke.

"Wow," he says. "So, the rainbow monster, she looked... uhh..."

"Not really my thing, Todd," Dirk says, as if it needs saying. Todd fights a grin.

"You don't think the cave girl from fairyland staying here is gonna --"

"Eventually connect to something in some way that eventually becomes a simply enormous problem? I mean, yes Todd, that's obvious."

For a few minutes, it's like normal. It's a wrap on all the fucked up shit that's been happening to them. It's just him and Dirk, two sane guys doing normal things, so when Dirk asks him if he's okay he says --

"I really am," because it's true. And then he says, "Hey Dirk. You solved the mystery," because he thinks it bears pointing out, because he knows soon reality will descend on them again, and he wants to make sure Dirk takes this moment to appreciate himself.

"Yeah well," Dirk deflects, "it was an easy one."

Todd laughs. "An easy one? Go screw yourself."

"Yeah well, everything is relative."

"Oh is that your new thing?" Todd asks, and Dirk grins, fond. They look out over Bergsberg together. Unbidden, thoughts of Wendimoor come to him. "I wonder what happened to Suzie Borten."

Dirk thinks about it for a moment.

"The train in the sky," he says, and Todd knows it's true. "That's how it was supposed to be. The villain locked away in a train in the sky that just goes round and round forever. Like the drawing."

Todd's not sure he can think of a worse fate for her. It's comforting.

"So, what happened when you went back to Blackwing?" He asks, and Dirk makes a face like he's tasted something sour.

"Not now, Todd. Let's just stand here and watch the sunset, and when Farah wakes up we can all exchange stories of who shot who and why."

Knowing the peace won't last forever, Todd watches the sunset.


	2. Day 70

**Todd**

* * *

 

 

They go East. With Farah asleep in the back, Todd has assumed the drivers position again by virtue of being the only person sans-gunshot-wound, and Dirk refuses to participate when he wonders out loud which coast they should set out for. Because he and Farah had been going West when they found Dirk, Todd makes the decision to go East. He figures that Minnesota is a pretty unassuming state, full of unassuming, boring, and un-supernatural people, hopefully, so long as they give Fargo a wide berth. They keep to the darker side-roads, Todd's ears and eyes strained for any indication that they are being followed, his heart jumping up into his throat every time a pair of lights appear in the rear-view mirror.

Dirk sits in the back as well, keeping an eye on Farah. As they drive, he and Todd rehash Wendimoor again, comparing their experiences in greater detail. Dirk dances around the Blackwing question once more, but makes Todd re-tell the part about visiting the dark place with Amanda three times while asking rapid-fire questions, then repeating 'background of reality' with awe. They spend a fair few minutes discussing the fact that Amanda is a badass witch, and then a few more arguing over whether Todd can learn magic (Dirk: yes, Todd: no) before they both fall silent. An hour later, Dirk is asleep. It's dark, and it's late, and Todd listens to the sound of his friends breathing and the sound of the wheels beneath them.

At quarter after midnight, five hours out of Bergsberg, Farah wakes up with a groan.

"Where are we?"

Todd glances in the rear-view. "We're in the middle of North Dakota right now. How are you feeling?"

"Like I'm missing a morphine drip. Where are we going?"

"I'm headed for Minnesota."

He can hear her shifting in the back, digging through the duffel bags left at her side. There is the sound of a pill bottle, then the seal break of a fresh bottle of water. A few moments of silence. Dirk is still breathing deeply, sprawled between them.

"Thank you for coming back," Farah says. Todd looks back at her again. In the darkness she's hard to see, but he can definitely discern her sheepishness.

"You know we would never leave you behind."

She sighs. "But you had no way of knowing it wasn't a trap. You could have been walking straight into their hands."

"Dirk had a feeling."

It's weak, Todd knows it's weak, and Farah makes a sound which indicates she definitely thinks this is a weak counter-point. Todd knows well enough from more upsetting nights of story-sharing that when Blackwing had ambushed them in Seattle, Dirk had walked straight out into the street. Todd knows this, so he knows exactly why Farah was concerned, just like he knows relying on the universe is a shaky plan at best. Unfortunately, for the last few months this shaky plan has more or less been the best caliber of plan he's been able to come up with. Since they found Dirk, it's been pulling only slightly more successful results. He hears her shift into a sitting position and the subsequent hiss of pain.

"I'll need to change my bandages soon," she says. "Dirk said he got shot? Is he okay?"

Todd feels a stab of guilt. With rescuing Farah on his mind, he hadn't even thought of Dirk's bandages or the changing of them. His experience tending to physical injuries pretty much started and ended with covering Dirk's face in bandaids.

"Not sure," he tells her shortly. "I'll pull off at the next motel I see."

He hears her finish the rest of the water bottle she started, the plastic bottle crinkling obnoxiously in the relative quiet. In the middle seat, Dirk wakes with a start so violent that Todd feels it in the front seat. There's an awkward beat before Farah speaks.

"You okay, Dirk?"

Dirk makes a strange sound. "Yes, of course, just a -- just a dream. Had. A dream. Where are we?"

"In North Dakota," Todd answers. "We're going --"

"Ah! Don't tell me!"

Dirk covers his ears and begins humming tunelessly. There is another awkward beat in which Todd reflects on how strangely Dirk has to act before it's a cause for legitimate concern. He sees a sign for a motel 15 miles away.

"Dirk," Farah's voice cuts in through his humming. He stops abruptly. "When's the last time you changed your bandages? No, actually, why did the guy from Patrick Spring's house shoot you? Was he in Wendimoor? Was Amanda in Wendimoor? What happened in Wendimoor? Start from the Cardenas house."

Once she starts, the questions seem to pour out of her. Todd doesn't blame her. He looks in the mirror and meets Dirk's eye, briefly, raising his eyebrows, handing over full rights to the story-telling. Dirk inhales and begins.

"Todd and I found the portal in the wall-bed --"

"I found the portal while you sulked," Todd cuts in.

"Alright, Todd found the portal while I had a very reasonable moment of crisis, and we were transported through a stone well to an old throne room covered in vines. Todd left to find Amanda, meanwhile I was discovered by a rainbow beast... girl, who declared me her boyfriend and --"

"Wait, you split up?" Farah interrupts, incredulous. Dirk makes a frustrated sound.

"Can I please just tell the story?"

Todd takes the exit to the motel, onto a much more well-lit road, and listens to Dirk summarize how the other mural led him to the epiphany which solved the case and how he came across Todd and Amanda just as they were about to be executed by the royal family. Here, Farah has a few questions which Todd tries to answer as level-headed as is possible while recounting the witness of a mass-slaughter. She seems horrified anyways. Dirk talks her through the ensuing battles with Suzie Borten, how Amanda learned to use magic, and their return to the magic portal room. He describes Todd and Amanda opening the portal, postulating once more that Todd 'definitely has the capacity for magical powers', at which point Todd scoffs pointedly. In the mirror he can see Farah's face drawn with concern.

"You went back to Blackwing? On your own?" She asks. Dirk stops.

"There was no other choice," he says, and Todd can feel how he is talking _around_ it, remembers Dirk's face in the throne room, the panic and the strain. Dirk picks his story back up before they can sink too deeply into the implications.

"Unfortunately, Suzie Borten had already sent the Mage's army to Blackwing to kill the boy before I could fulfill the prophecy, so it was a little like walking into a war zone. I wouldn't have made it through if I hadn't found Mona, who turned into a motorbike and got me to Francis' room in the East wing, where Friedkin found us and pointed a gun at my head while he had a crisis of identity. He then pointed the gun at his own head while deciding whether or not he was 'the bad guy', in the end deciding to help us to get back to the portal, where Ken found us, shot him, said some stuff about the Universe, and shot me in the leg. He would have shot me in the other leg, too, if Friedkin hadn't have stood up for me, which puts him at a very weird score with me, but alas. I returned with The Boy, a.k.a Francis Pollock, a.k.a Francis Cardenas, a.k.a Project Moloch, to Wendimoor, where he fixed everything, brought all the dead people back to life, sent Suzie Borten to the train in the sky, and sent us back to our world. This world." He takes a deep breath. "I believe that's everything."

Todd pulls into the motel lot. He parks, but doesn't get out, twisting in his seat to look at his friends. "When the hell did Ken start working for Blackwing?"

Dirk makes a face and shrugs. "I haven't got a clue."

"He must have been kidnapped," Farah says. "If they ambushed Amanda and the Rowdies on the same day they took you, Dirk, they probably also hit Bart. She got away, but he didn't. Maybe he cut a deal with them, for his freedom."

"He seemed pretty well in charge of the situation," Dirk says with distaste. "He implied heavily that Blackwing was under his control, and I didn't sense that he was in as much duress as one would quite expect from a kidnapping hostage."

Todd digests this information, staring through the windshield at the motel office. His brain is getting better at connecting all the random threads of existence alongside the supernatural, but after hours of driving he feels like the human equivalent of the buffering circle.

"I can't believe he shot you," he says finally. "I thought he was cool. Back at the Spring house, I thought... We had a vibe."

"Well I got a decidedly uncool vibe from him," Dirk tells him. "In fact, I think he's going to be a big problem for us."

"Great," Farah's voice drips with sarcasm. "Just what we need."

The weight of their narrow escape starts to creep between them again, so Todd gets out of the car. He scrutinizes the only two other vehicles in the lot as he crosses to the office, Dirk's words still ringing in his ears. With Farah injured, the only defense they would have against any Blackwing agents is Todd's air gun, which doesn't, in his opinion, give them very good odds. He feels a nervous energy building under his skin and pops a stolen anti-psychotic into his mouth, rolling his shoulders as he pushes the office door open. It's dingy and fluorescent-lit, looking exactly as he had come to expect from motel offices. The woman behind the counter is reading a paperback novel, and she looks up when Todd enters, seeming surprised to see him. This is good. The more deserted the motel, the better he sleeps.

"Uh, hi. Can I get a room?"

"Eighty dollars a night for a single, a hundred for a double."

Todd realizes he hasn't brought Mona-the-credit-card in with him. "Um... One second."

He runs back out to the van and opens the passenger door. Dirk seems to be describing Wendimoor to Farah in the back. Todd leans forward and speaks to Dirk's jacket between the seats.

"Hey, uh, Mona, could you please be a credit card again?"

In the seat next to Dirk, the jacket vanishes and a credit card takes its place. Todd leans further and snatches it off the seat. From the back of the van, Farah is beginning to say "What the fu-- " when Todd shuts the door again. He smirks.

He gets a room with two double beds, asks that it be at the other end of the motel, and is relieved again when the payment is accepted. When he gets back to the van, Dirk is just wrapping up Mona's origin story while Farah stares, eyes narrowed as though she can't decide whether to believe him.

"Todd, would you put Mona down so that Farah can meet her?" Dirk says to Todd as he gets back in the drivers seat. Obligingly, Todd sets the credit card down in the seat next to him. The next second, Mona's human form is sitting there, facing the rear of the car and smiling broadly. It's pretty fucking scary. Farah yelps.

"Hello, Farah, nice to meet you," Mona speaks in her same floaty voice.

Todd pulls the van up to their room as Farah balks at the new human. "Hi. Jacket. Mona. Sorry, you're... Dirk's jacket? Why?"

"Being a human is inconvenient," Mona says serenely. _Amen_ , Todd thinks. "Dirk is nice, and I like to be yellow."

Farah continues to balk at her.

"Mona, you may resume being whatever you like now," Dirk tells her, and she smiles fondly at him before promptly returning to being a jacket. Dirk looks between Todd and Farah, appalled. "You two really are terrible at introductions, do you know that?"

"Not everybody knows a shapeshifter, dude, it's not relatable at all," Todd retorts. "No offense, Mona."

The jacket says nothing.

Todd goes around to the back and helps Dirk onto his crutches, then reaches to help Farah climb out. She winces every time she moves, and Todd feels his heart lurch. She takes it slow and deliberate, and he is painfully aware that she probably shouldn't be moving at all. Once she's sitting inside, he goes back out to get the duffel bag and bandages. When he comes back again, Farah is ticking off plot points on her fingers.

"So, The Boy was in Blackwing the whole time, and you've actually known him since you were a boy. The jacket is Mona, who is another Blackwing victim, and who also got you out of Blackwing, which is currently being run by Ken, Bart's friend, who fixed Patrick Spring's time machine in Seattle. In Wendimoor Amanda and Todd turned Pararibulitis into magical powers, and now Amanda has gone to find the rest of the people like you before Blackwing can, because the fabric of the universe is coming apart. Is that everything?"

"Yes, essentially," Dirk says, as Todd is saying, "I don't have magic powers."

Farah nods slowly and slumps back against the pillows. Dirk is sitting on the bed closer to the door, his crutches laid out next to him, so Todd drops into the only chair in the room.

"So," he says to Farah. "What's your story? What happened with the Mage?"

An expression of discomfort comes over her, the same expression she wears when she's assuming the blame for something that isn't her fault. Todd recognizes it. Todd wonders why his only two friends in the world are so keen to blame themselves for just about everything.

"Tina and I went to the Borten's and found Bob. Tina managed to get through the enchantment to talk to him and he told us the Mage was at the quarry, so we went there and tried to sneak up on him, but he knew we were there and stuck us both with his wand thing. We passed out, then tried to attack again but he made Hobbs shoot us, so I had to shoot to disarm, and then Tina shot me and I shot Tina. The Mage had packed the cruiser full of explosives to blow up the Cardenas house, so I managed to shoot it and blow it up. The explosion killed him."

She says all of this as though she is ashamed of being cursed, instead of proud that she blew up an evil warlock. Todd is about to try his hand at consoling her, which really means he's about to tell her to stop beating herself up, but Dirk gets there first.

"You are _so_ cool, Farah, and I'm getting the impression right now that you don't actually _know_ how cool you are, so I'm just pointing out that it is very cool and brave and commendable to blow up an unhinged magician. You deserve a medal, or an honorable mention, perhaps a hand-written letter from the President. Is that a thing? The key to Bergsberg! That's what you deserve."

Dirk's rambling elicits a small smile from her, barely there before it's gone and she is schooling her expression into something harder. She nods at the bandages, which Todd had dumped on the bed next to Dirk, and then points at Dirk's leg.

"Take off your pants."

It's a testament to everything they've been through that they barely spare a moment for awkwardness while Dirk shimmies off the bed and, with difficulty, strips off his pants. Todd's not sure what he expected, but he grimaces at the sight of Dirk's bandages soaked through with dark red blood. Farah's brow is knit together.

"That doesn't look good," Dirk says, his voice disjointed. "Can't be worse than a harpoon wound though, can it?"

He looks between them, his question genuine. Todd shrugs, shifting forwards in his seat to watch Dirk unwind the soiled gauze from his thigh to reveal a, yup, a fucking hole in his leg. It's not exactly big, but it's bloody and swollen nonetheless, and Todd can't help the hiss of air that escapes him at the sight. He looks away quickly. From her place on the opposite bed, Farah leans over as far as she can, her expression of concern morphing into alarm as she inspects the wound.

"Dirk... Did you... get treated at the hospital?"

"Um, no. We had to," Dirk waves his hand a little bit, "flee. Amanda bandaged it very well, though, so I've been, just, you know, trying not to think about it too much. Let it do it's own... thang." He flourishes lamely. Todd puts his face in his hands, and Farah just looks at him, her face set in disbelief.

"Are you telling me there's still a bullet in your leg?"

 _Oh, shit_.  Todd's head snaps up again and he sees Dirk blanch, looking down at his own thigh as though betrayed. Through a fresh rush of guilt, Todd wonders _how_ one could forget about a bullet lodged inside their flesh, but being as he's never actually been shot...

Farah is easing herself to the edge of the bed, her face hard once again. She moves so that she's facing Dirk, gesturing for him to do the same. The room is so narrow that their knees knock together as they sit across from one another -- Dirk begins to speak, but Farah shushes him. She holds his knee between her own (still bare beneath the hospital gown) and checks the damage more closely. In a life with less bloodshed, Todd thinks, it would be quite intimate. But in this reality, Farah looks up and tells Dirk that she might be able to get the bullet out of his leg without making an incision if she can find a long pair of tweezers, and in this reality Dirk starts to stammer about the benefits of 'just leaving it in there, actually'. In this very troubled reality, Todd stands and moves to the bathroom to look for tweezers.

He doesn't find anything even remotely useful in the bathroom, and is about to report as much when he notices a piece of paper drifting through the air. It drifts closer to Farah and Dirk, then turns into a bumble-bee abruptly. The bee buzzes over Farah's head, then transforms into a pair of medical grade tweezers. The tweezers land in her hair, at which point Farah plucks them out and studies them, looking off-put, before nodding.

"This will work."

Todd takes the mantle as her assistant, passing her a warm hand towel and the rubbing alcohol, hovering above them and feeling all but useless as she begins to clean Dirk's wound. Todd expects him to fidget or exclaim, but he sits rigid, staring at the wall behind Farah's head with his mouth set into a tight grimace and his fists clenched in the blankets at his sides. The shade of determination in his face reminds Todd that he has, in all likelihood, endured worse.

"Stand by with gauze," Farah says to Todd once she's set the wash cloth aside. "There's going to be blood. I'm sorry, Dirk, but this is probably going to hurt."

The sight of Farah fishing the bullet out of Dirk's thigh is nauseating, even to Todd, who discovered a murder scene not three months back. Dirk gasps with pain, breaking his stony silence, and screws his eyes shut, keeping them closed for the entire twenty seconds it takes Farah to extract the .45 -- which comes out with a truly disgusting sound that Todd wishes he could unhear immediately. He doesn't even realize he's been holding his breath til it's over, exhaling deeply at the same time Dirk does. Farah wraps gauze to the wound with fresh bandages.

"You're really lucky the bullet didn't hit bone or artery," she says, handing Todd the old bandages, the Mona-tweezers, and the bloody bullet. He takes them all with a ripple of revulsion and heads for the bathroom again. "That could have killed you."

"Yes, I feel very lucky," Todd hears Dirk say, his voice thin.

After disposing of the bandages and rinsing the Mona-tweezers thoroughly, Todd stands at the sink and considers the bullet. An inch and a half long, slightly mangled, and covered in Dirk's blood, it feels both strangely significant and deceptively small. He thinks about what Farah said, finding that he agrees with her. This unimpressive little piece of metal could have easily ended Dirk's life, and yet he was here. Damaged, surely, but not dead. He rinses the blood from the bullet and washes his hands before rejoining his friends. Dirk is lying back on the bed, staring at the ceiling with a piteous expression, otherwise unmoved.

"Here," Todd says, holding the bullet in Dirk's line of sight, above him. Dirk reaches up and takes it, holding it close to his face so he can inspect it. He looks at Todd.

"Why do I want this?"

"I dunno. Keepsake? Reminder of your many triumphs over death?"

Dirk looks at him for another moment, expression unreadable, then looks back at the ceiling. The bullet turns over and over between his fingers.

Farah insists on changing her own bandages, and Todd, knowing better than to upset her chi or OCD or whatever, goes along with it. He helps her to the bathroom, setting her gently on the closed toilet, and helps her out of the hospital gown, then leans against the counter and lets her peel her own bandages off. There's a wound on her right shoulder and one on her torso, neither of them soaked through their coverings, but the bloody holes underneath are no more pretty than Dirk's, and Todd feels his heart cinch a little tighter. They should both be in hospitals, he thinks, rather than this shitty motel, on the run again, with no medical equipment whatsoever and the government hunting them...

He cuts that line of thinking, trying not to sink into the well of injustices that have come to pass. There's dread resting beneath his skin that he doesn't want to prod. He fetches fresh gauze and clothes for Farah.

"Do you think he's gonna be okay?" She says as she re-bandages herself. She doesn't look up, and Todd is so lost in thought he almost doesn't realize she's speaking. It's not hard to figure out who she's talking about. "Before Wendimoor, he was so..."

"Depressive?" Todd supplies quietly. He's looking out into their cramped room, where Dirk is now man-handling the television. The screen flips between multiple news stations, Dirk jabbing the controls aggressively, before landing on a shitty sitcom. Farah hums, her voice still cast low.

"I mean, it's obvious that he's dealing with trauma, he _was_ kidnapped, but... do you think he'll be alright?"

"I don't know," Todd says, because as much as people keep asking him about Dirk's well-being, he has no clue if Dirk is going to lose his shit at any given moment. He barely has a clue if he is going to lose his shit at any moment. "I hope so."

She says nothing. Once the bandages are back on, Todd helps her into the t-shirt and some sweatpants. Before he can move to help her up again, she takes his hand and lifts it, gently, so that her cheek is resting in his palm. He strokes her cheekbone with his thumb, once, and then the moment is over. They rejoin Dirk, who is perched at the foot of Farah's bed, watching TV from two feet away. He still looks vaguely haunted, and he doesn't acknowledge them as Todd helps Farah settle into the pillows behind him. Todd wonders if he heard them talking about him.

Once Todd has pulled off his jeans and turned out the light, he climbs into the other bed. The softness of the duvet against his skin triggers the exhaustion that has been waiting for him. The clock on the bedside table reads quarter to two.

"Dirk," Farah says to the silhouette at the foot of her bed. "Come sit with me."

Todd falls asleep to an outdated punchline and a laughtrack.

 

* * *

 

 

Gordon Rimmer has Suzie Borten in one cage, and the purple people eater in another. He's going to switch their souls, and they are all going to watch. Bart and Panto are holding hands, presiding over the scene with grave expressions, locked in the detaining cage of the abandoned zoo transfer unit. He's confused in an unsure way, like he stopped paying attention right at the crucial moment and now he can't keep up with why, why nobody is saying anything, why they're here. Dirk and Farah are holding hands, too, standing just far enough away from him that he can't reach out to them, can't whisper his questions. The longer he tries to siddle closer, the farther away they seem to get. He thinks he hears Amanda's voice, and he turns away from the scene, which has become a bonfire. Someone is screaming, distant, and he's gripped with the need to _find_. He leaves through the dramatic double-doors, finding the forest of Wendimoor outside. It's dark, but he moves forwards. He moves out of the ring of light. The trees sag down to meet him, branches brushing his shoulders, the screaming growing fainter, until it's faint as the wind. He walks on, devoid of purpose.

The dream shifts. It's foggy. He's a child, running through unfamiliar yet familiar streets. He's going home. Above a cobblestone wall a woman watches him with weary eyes.

It shifts again. The confusion lifts. He's not in Wendimoor. He's not a child. He is somewhere else. Somewhere that is dark and light at the same time, safe and unsafe, wanting but unbiased. He can feel his hands but he cannot move them. Why is this familiar? he thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there are any willing betas interested, I'm looking for someone to look over the chapters before publishing them. Comment or message me!


	3. Free Will

**Dirk**

* * *

 

Every time he wakes up it's the same. A half second of despair, the echo of an automated voice, then a rush of relief. Today would have been day 71 of testing. He has been free again for one whole week, this morning. He assumes it's morning. He pushes himself into a sitting position and blinks around, feeling himself take root as he does. He doesn't remember falling asleep, his last memories of the night before being chopped scenes of vintage American comedy, and he is still lying on top of the blankets.

Farah is asleep alongside him, underneath the covers and nestled so deeply into the pillows that all he can see of her is a poof of hair. He stares down at the poof for a moment, struck by a strange feeling of susceptibility. He can't remember the last time he shared a bed with someone. Doing his best not to rouse her, he tries to ease himself out of bed, and his thigh throbs with pain. He has to take a few moments before he can force himself to move again, gritting his teeth as he does. It's safe to say he's tired of getting shot now, and he tries to broadcast this sentiment in the universe's direction (fruitless: he knows) while he reaches for the crutches leaning against the bedside table. They hadn't been there the night before, so Dirk assumes Todd must have left them there.

Todd, who is no longer in his bed.

Dirk stands, his thigh all but screaming in protest, and wobbles over to the bathroom. Todd isn't in there either, but there are medication bottles lined up on the bathroom counter, and water bottles beside them. Double checking to make sure they are pills of the anti-pain variety, and hoping this isn't an elaborate set-up in which he is about to poison himself, Dirk takes four. Then he stands in front of the sink and wonders whether he should panic. All the evidence points to Todd simply waking up and leaving, completely willingly, but then, what does Dirk know about evidence? And why would Todd leave without them? He feels around inside his head, tries to tap into the stream around him, hopes for some sort of inkling, and is met with nothing but a now-familiar thrum of dread. Dread and hunger. Completely useless for finding Todd.

He hobbles back out into the other room and sits on the unoccupied bed.

"Mona?" He says, quietly enough so as not to disturb Farah. He's not sure he wants to wake her, yet. "Are you here?"

He looks around at the objects in the room, waiting for something to become human, but they all stay inanimate. No answer. It's unlikely that she would ignore him, so Todd must have taken her, probably somewhere he's going to need money, probably close by, probably nothing to panic about. Dirk hopes it's breakfast. He gets up again, unsure what to do with himself, and ignores the way using crutches has begun to aggravate his barely-healed shoulder. He goes to the door, opens it, looks out. It's a balmy day. The Amboolents is gone, as expected. Leaving the door open in case Farah wakes up, he steps outside and drops down into one of two white plastic lawn chairs sitting outside their room. Across a narrow field the highway is visible, much busier in the daylight than it had been upon their arrival the night before. Dirk watches the cars pass by, wondering how long Todd has been gone, wondering if he is visible from the highway.

Even by his own standards, things have been happening very quickly since his most recent escape from Blackwing, and most of the _things_ happening have been excessively murder-y, which is, of course, the exact opposite of what he explicitly wanted. Himself, Farah, Tina, and Hobbs all getting shot may not be the worst case scenario, considering they've all survived, but it's a far cry away from a pleasant or normal case. He can't pretend he's not bitter that The Boy didn't actually _fix_ more things for them. All he'd really done was make some cars, and Dirk could get cars on his own, but he couldn't get a new leg, so, therefore, Francis had been only slightly helpful.

He tries to think of the silver linings. __Todd and Amanda are friends again! He found Mona! The little rainbow beast came away unscathed! They escaped Blackwing this time!__

Unless Blackwing was tracking them, which they probably were, really, why wouldn't they be?

He puts his head in his hands. It's no use. His thoughts won't be reeled in, he's spiraling out, he can't convince himself things aren't looking Bad. Did it even count as saving Wendimoor if everyone in it had died first? He isn't sure the technicalities, but the feeling of never getting ahead, of being just a few steps behind, has lingered. He's still being hunted. Todd and Farah continue to be at risk every moment they spend with him, and they still don't seem to care, and Amanda is quite literally launching herself into harms way to fulfill yet another mad prophecy. Solving the case meant nothing. There was no reward. The only difference was that they'd left Sherlock and Tina and any sense of purpose behind in Bergsberg.

Worse than all of this is that the universe has taken him twice now back to Blackwing, and he is terrified. Francis had said he was supposed to bring people where they were supposed to be. If his fundamental purpose was to be in the right place at the right time, as he had often suspected, then why was he compelled to walk straight into Friedkin's grasp in Seattle? For fifteen years he was safe and free, and now the tide of God's will kept pulling him back to the one place he'd been sure he was never supposed to be, throwing him up against his worst fear over and over like a surfer bludgeoned to death against rocky shores. Bart's voice sing-songs in his ear.

_"I'm starting to get a feelin' this all ends badly."_

If the Universe is falling apart, and if he is nothing but a tool of the universe, then he too must be falling apart.

He raises his head to the sound of a car approaching, relief flushing through him when he recognizes the Amboolents -- though he realizes as it draws nearer that it's missing the sloppy moniker scrawled on the side. Todd is visible through the windshield, sitting in the drivers seat, and Dirk is slightly surprised to see Mona in human form next to him. They pull up and Todd jumps out, holding a hand over his eyes as he greets Dirk.

"Hey. You hungry?"

Dirk's spirits lift considerably. "Oh my God, yes."

Mona emerges from the other side of the car with a plastic take-out bag. He makes grabby hands for it. As he delves into the topmost Styrofoam container -- eggs and waffles -- she stands next to him and squints into the sun.

"My skin is hot," she says. "I don't like it."

"Yes, that'll happen," Dirk tells her around a mouthful of waffle. "Try being a lizard, they love the heat."

"That's a good idea," she says thoughtfully. A moment later there is an iguana on the cement where she had been standing.

Todd disappears around behind the van, and Dirk can hear him dragging something out of the back. When he comes back around he's carrying two stuffed-looking duffel bags, which he drops at the door before taking the chair next to Dirk. He looks appreciatively at the iguana.

"Where did you go?" Dirk asks.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Todd tells him, with a look of moderate disgust. "I went to Wal-Mart. You guys need more bandages, and I figured we should probably stock up on the essentials. Toothbrushes and stuff." He glances at the motel room door, still slightly ajar. "Is Farah still asleep?"

Dirk makes a point of swallowing. "Yes. You know, you probably shouldn't go off on your own like that. It could be very dangerous."

Todd fixes him with a Look, eyebrows raised in disbelief. "Sure, now you care. Thanks for your concern, buddy, but this time I wasn't alone. I had Mona." He gestures at the iguana, who, if Dirk isn't mistaken, does a little shimmy. "If anything went wrong, she was going to turn into a tank so I could roll on out of there."

Dirk takes his point and chooses to focus very intently on his eggs rather than form a response. Todd reaches over and takes one of the unopened Styrofoam containers, and they eat in silence for a few minutes before Todd looks over at him again.

"Why were you sitting out here?"

"I was thinking."

This earns him another Look, more apprehension than disbelief this time. Dirk focuses even more intently on his waffle.

"Thinking or sulking?" Todd asks.

Dirk makes an indignant sound. Even if he was sulking, a little, he doesn't appreciate being called right out on it, and he certainly doesn't want to talk about it.

"I don't sulk," he says, in what he hopes is a definitive voice.

Todd rolls his eyes. "You have been doing a considerable amount of sulking, actually."

" _Thinking_ about bad and undesirable situations does not constitute _sulking_."

"I think it does. Especially if you blame yourself for the bad and undesirable situations."

"The only thing I'm blaming myself for currently is picking such an annoying assistant."

"Dirk, don't deflect --"

"Too early for fighting," Farah interrupts. She's standing in the door frame, rubbing her eyes, and Todd vacates his chair in an instant, herding her into it.

"We weren't fighting," he tells her, passing along the last Styrofoam container. He checks a watch he hadn't been wearing the day before. "And it's almost noon."

She makes a dismissive noise as she shovels a forkful of eggs into her mouth, obviously not concerned with his semantics. Finished with his own breakfast and not eager to return to his conversation with Todd, Dirk leans over and picks up Mona-the-iguana. Second forkful of eggs half-way to her mouth, Farah pauses.

"Mona? Or otherwise notable iguana?"

"Mona," both Todd and Dirk say. Their eyes meet and Todd gives him a Very Knowing look, but, thankfully, lets the subject drop. He drags the duffel bags through the open door into their room, and Dirk watches him dump their contents onto the beds and begin sorting them into three piles. He moves with an efficiency Dirk had not expected, adding one more thing to the list of unrecognizable traits he's exhibited post-Blackwing-ordeal.

He tries not to think too deeply on it, lest he begin to _sulk_.

"How did you sleep?" Farah asks, drawing Dirk's attention. He comes back to himself, realizing he's just been staring blankly at Todd. His cheeks flush.

"Certainly better than Hobbs' floor, though not quite up to the five-star standards at Blackwing," he quips. She frowns as though concerned, so he backpedals. "That was a joke, sorry. Not a good one. I slept just fine, though I'm sorry I fell asleep on your bed without asking first. I understand that can be rude."

She waves her fork. "Don't worry about it. We were going to have to double up anyways."

Dirk is a heartbeat away from mentioning that shouldn't it be Todd and Farah sharing a bed, given their status, but Todd rejoins them with a huff to inform them that he's sorted their duffel bags.

"Dirk, yours is the blue, Farah's is the black, and mine is the black with red tags. I checked your pant size before I went, Dirk, but you were still wearing your shirt so I had to guess a little bit on your size. I hope the sleeves are long enough." He leans against the door frame, as Farah had, looking thoughtful. "I got a laptop, too. I figure we can log on at the next motel and see if Blackwing has mobilized yet."

Dirk is, begrudgingly, impressed. Perhaps things aren't so bad. His friends are in danger, but they also seem to know what they're doing. He claps his hands together, plastering a smile on his face.

"Fantastic, Todd! I love a man with a plan, it really makes my life sooooooo much easier. When will we be hitting the road again, then?"

Todd's expression sits somewhere between bemusement and irritation. "Check-out is in an hour, so I would say we should start packing up soon. The, uh, inside of the van is a little disorganized right now. I tried to get some of the blood out of the upholstery at the car wash."

Farah grimaces.

"We should change our bandages," she says to Dirk, closing her now-empty Styrofoam container and tossing it in the bag with the other garbage. Dirk suddenly realizes that he's uncomfortably sweaty. The day is growing humid, and the sun is relentless. He removes Mona from her perch on his shoulder and places her back on the ground.

"I'm going to shower," he says, and begins to struggle out of his chair. Todd moves forward immediately, helping him into a standing position and onto his crutches.

"Do you, um. Need help?" He asks once Dirk is on his feet, looking just as uncomfortable as he sounds. While Dirk appreciates the thought, he can't help the face he makes -- which is one of extreme distaste.

"No, thank you, I much prefer my showers unsupervised."

He doesn't miss the way their faces scrunch, the twin expressions of concern they don, but luckily Mona chooses this moment to transform from iguana to small model race-car and begins vrooming in tight circles. Both Todd's and Farah's eyes slip down to her, and Dirk uses the moment to limp away to the shower.

 

 

 

**Ken**

* * *

 

He can't even be upset when Dirk Gently escapes, because he knows. He understands that if it happened it was meant to be, he realizes that it's arrogance that drives man to keep what cannot be caught, and he knows he's guilty of it. Dirk Gently (Svlad Cjelli, Project Icarus) cannot be contained. It's clear from the given research, the files Friedkin had so unwittingly given him access to, that he was never meant to be. In his original nine-year stretch at Blackwing, he'd escaped no fewer than eleven times, each time caught by Priest, but each time escaping again until the final convergence, the mass-escape that ended the program.

So if Dirk Gently and Todd Brotzman went to the hospital in broad daylight, retrieved Farah Black, and slipped out of town without being noticed... c'est la vie. He can't complain. He should have known that the universe would intervene. Icarus needs to be an un-tethered agent, free to wander the earth and fulfill his purpose without shackles. There aren't many concrete facts about his specific... skill, but one thing is painfully clear: it can not, by anyone, be controlled.

Which is a crying shame, Ken thinks, and more than likely the direct fault of his Blackwing predecessors. Friedkin had wasted every bodies time with childish, inane, and uninspired experiments, while Riggins had led the program for a decade with no real success to speak of. He had lacked the drive to actually understand what he was working with, held back by simple-mindedness and a budget; therefore Svlad's time here as a child had been... directionless torture. He had been promised answers, an understanding of what he was, but had received nothing. Ken can't blame him for his unwillingness to cooperate, and is aggrieved to acknowledge that he has probably made matters worse by shooting him.

Be that as it may, though, he's pleased with the way things are shaping up. His position is secure, and director Wilson had even seemed impressed with him. Dirk, Todd Brotzman, and Black may have slipped through their fingers, but The Rowdies were, as usual, making themselves carelessly easy to track via satellite. Priest had already been dispatched to make contact with them, and Ken is excited about the new direction they are taking.

He looks up from his computer as his door opens, and Bart comes shuffling in. She never stays in her room for more than a few hours, and has developed a habit of following him around the base as he operates. It makes the others nervous, but he's ordered everyone in the facility to stand down, to even let her walk out if she wants to. He straddles a delicate line between life and death, now, and he knows that he is only as good as her trust in him. She gave him purpose, and now she acts as his moral compass. A guide. As long as she wasn't killing him, his path was true.

"What are you doing?" She asks. "I'm bored."

"You're always bored," he tells her, turning the screen so that she can see the CCTV footage he's reviewing. In it, the Rowdy 3 -- plus Amanda Brotzman and their new, unidentified member -- are destroying a police cruiser. She grins and claps when she sees it.

"Oooh, I know them. They were here last time. They're fun."

Ken studies her. "Were you allowed to interact with them?"

Her face changes. She looks at him with narrowed eyes. This happens a lot now. "Why?"

"Just wondering."

"Are you gonna send Priest after them?" She asks. The tension in the room is climbing, and Ken can sense it, but it feels detached from him. He smiles at her.

"Priest is going to talk to them. I have a few questions I need answered, before we can start on the next step."

"What's the next step?"

"Oh, you'll see. Trust me, you'll be the first to know."

He told her things were going to be different now, and he meant it -- he's going to find answers, to do what Blackwing has promised to do from the beginning. But in order to find the answers, he has to first ask the right questions. Questions like:

What is Pararibulitis?

 

 

 

**Dirk**

* * *

 

They drive until midnight, stopping only for food and bathroom breaks, and Dirk feels like he's going crazy by the third hour. He tries his best to keep his eyes and mind off the road, hoping to subvert any kind of opinion he might have on their direction, but once they cross into Minnesota Todd begins broadcasting their wherabouts every forty minutes, meeting Dirk's eye in the rear-view, obviously savvy to Dirk's act of denial. Despite Todd's needling, Dirk gives no insight. Honestly, he has no real insight. The universe hasn't given him any good, discernible tugs in a while. Nothing but the thrum, the dread, the terrible confusion. Todd just keeps going East, until eventually they are all the way through Minnesota and in Wisconsin, and his glances at Dirk in the rear-view are more irritated than amused. More inconvenient than Todd's irritation is Dirk's boredom. He knows bored equals good in his current life theory, but that doesn't make it any easier to stare out the window for ten hours. Farah sits shotgun, bolstered by excessive pillows upon Todd's insistence, so Dirk is left alone in the back but for Mona's occasional animal or human company. She transforms into a ball-in-the-cup for a few hours and Dirk plays with her until Farah politely asks -- through gritted teeth -- for him to stop. When he asks Farah and Todd how they kept themselves entertained during their two months, _months_ he thinks, of this boredom, they both blush and stammer and he's left with no answer but a pretty good understanding.

While they drive, Farah sends out messages to Tina and Amanda from her burner, reporting to Todd that Amanda has headed for the opposite coast, California, and that Tina and Hobbs have been questioned about their disappearance but aren't in any 'immediate danger'. After this she recedes into a long and involved text conversation with Tina, apparently recounting all the parts of Todd and Dirk's story that she missed out on. By nightfall, Dirk feels he has slipped into a waking coma. Todd hums or sings along with the radio, and Farah is asleep. Dirk must fall asleep, too, because he wakes up again when the driver's door slams shut. The clock reads quarter past twelve. They're parked outside another motel office, this one surrounded by dense trees. Farah smiles at him from the front seat, still half asleep herself.

Todd comes back a few minutes later with a room key.

"We're in the upper peninsula, just off the Canadian border," he says as he climbs back in to the car. Dirk fights the urge to roll his eyes, and they park again outside their room.

Once he's helped Farah and Dirk out of the car, Todd goes back a third time and drags the mattress out of the back, depositing it on the floor between the two beds. Dirk watches him bring in the blankets and pillows, wondering again why Farah and Todd wouldn't share a bed. If they had reasons other than being two of the most awkward people on the planet. He doesn't have long to wonder, because sleep comes for him again quickly.


	4. questions to questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for lots of blood in this chapter, near the end, but it's easy enough to skip over.

**Todd**

* * *

 

The heat only gets worse. When Todd wakes up the next morning he’s soaked in sweat, his blankets thrown onto the floor next to him unceremoniously, a heavy humidity pressing down on him. The sun is shining brightly through the cracks in the blinds, but despite this, Farah and Dirk are still asleep. As quietly as he can, Todd gets up from his roost on the floor and heads for the shower. While he stands under the cold water he rolls his shoulders and tries to work out some of his tension, but it does not abate. There’s a dread niggling the back of his brain, like the feeling when you’ve woken up from a nightmare but don’t remember what it was about, and he’s not sure if it’s because of the re-emerging pattern of being on the run or because, as of this morning, he’s only got four full doses of antipsychotics left, but it’s unrelenting and frustrating. 

He gets out of the shower and towels himself off, forgoing his morning dose deliberately. He knows he's only prolonging the inevitable, but it's an act of conservation. After he runs out of the antipsychotics, he’s got a bottle of Xanax -- which is less than half effective, but will do in a pinch -- and then he’s shit out of luck. He tries not to think about this as he slips quietly back into the other room, preferring to set himself towards the act of achieving breakfast. This rhythm is familiar to him. A tight cycle of  _ just don’t think about it _ ’s and simple, unfulfilling tasks. It’s as familiar as time itself. It’s a preservational skill that far predates Dirk’s presence in his life, but has come in very handy since being on the F.B.I’s most wanted list. 

Which he isn’t anymore, according to the intel Farah had received from Hobbs, but who knew what that meant. It certainly didn’t feel like freedom. It was more than likely, in Todd’s private opinion, that they had been shuffled around to some other, more secretive, insidious,  _ kill on sight _ kind of list. 

Another thing  _ not to think about.  _

The man in the motel office, different from the receptionist Todd had spoken to the night before, gives Todd directions to the nearest diner. The drive there is ten minutes along blessedly deserted streets, and there are only two other people in the establishment for the duration of Todd’s visit. He keeps a close eye on them, watching for the tells Farah had taught him, the minute movements which give away a tail. The men are well into their sixties, at least, and less than hardly threatening, but the force of habit is strong. When his takeout order comes (fruit, waffles, three plates of eggs and toast), Todd is glad to get out of there.

He sits outside their room before going in, enjoying the air conditioning, and calls Amanda. She doesn’t pick up, and he doesn’t leave a voicemail. It’s eleven a.m here in Michigan, so it’s only nine a.m in California. If that’s where they truly ended up, she’s likely not even awake yet, or at least that’s what he tells himself as he climbs out of the van with the food. 

Dirk and Farah are awake when he enters their room, both showered, and he gets the impression that they’re just about wilting in the heat. Dirk complains loudly through every bite of his breakfast, disparaging the heat and the humidity and other parts of America that have, as far as Todd knows, very little to do with the weather, and when they’re done eating they pack up and flee to the air conditioned interior of the Amboolents. 

They set off Southward, the only way they can go without going back the way they came or crossing the border.  As he had the day before, Dirk refuses to participate in any discussion of  _ where  _ they are going or  _ what  _ they are going to do, something that Todd is finding increasingly suspicious. He sets his sights on Maine, just to have a destination, and asks Farah if she had any luck getting intel on Blackwing. While he had retrieved breakfast, she’d used the laptop to try her brother’s C.I.A credentials and found that they had finally been frozen out. From the back seat she tells Todd what he already knows -- without C.I.A clearance, they can’t get anywhere near the Blackwing databases anymore. She’d tried her limited hacking knowledge and met a brick wall every time.  In the passenger seat, Dirk makes a funny sound, somewhere between derision and anger, speaking for the first time since they set off.

“Now that they’ve put someone semi-maybe-competent in charge, I think they’ve  _ probably _ upgraded their security. So don’t feel bad.”

“What do you mean?” Farah asks. 

“Well, let’s just say that Ken is rather more savvy than his predecessor. I haven’t the foggiest clue how Hugo Friedkin ever came to be in charge of anything except buttoning his own trousers-- I mean, Colonel Riggins certainly wasn’t a  _ genius _ , despite the way the C.I.A may have hailed him, early on, but Friedkin was about as intuitive as a box of pebbles. It’s no wonder you were able to access their databases.” He purses his lips as though scandalized. “He blasted slime in my face.  _ Slime. _ How juvenile can you be?” 

This is the first time Dirk’s mentioned what happened to him since it happened, the first time he’s divulged any details. Todd glances over at him and sees his face change, realizing what he’s done and regretting it immediately. Todd knows who Riggins is, but not because Dirk told him. He and Farah had seen the name, time after time, in the Blackwing files they’d accessed while looking for leads. Lead program coordinator:  _ Colonel Riggins _ . Supervising officer:  _ Colonel Riggins _ . Research provided by:  _ Colonel Riggins.  _ They’d tried to track him down, but he was a ghost. No address or known whereabouts after the program collapsed in 2001. No useful information whatsoever. 

The files never mentioned Dirk, Bart, or the Rowdies by name. Just project labels and I.D numbers. There was barely anything there. Farah had postulated that the C.I.A probably sanitized them, removed all personal information that could incriminate the Agency for keeping people prisoner. Standard procedure.

Farah clears her throat awkwardly. “Dirk… When they took you...did they hurt you?” 

Dirk takes a moment to answer, and when he does it’s in a clipped, casual voice.

“The slime didn’t hurt, but it was very annoying. The tests were stupid and repetitive, but for the most part physically non-violent. Barring some light neurological probes and electrocution. A walk in the park, really, minus the emotional devastation and being held against my will.”

Todd does battle with a confusing emotional cocktail of sadness, rage, and guilt. A visceral reminder of what it was like to know that Dirk was suffering, to know that it was up to them to get him out, to know if he just hadn't gone to the bathroom, if Dirk hadn't walked out alone...

“I’m sorry,” he says. Dirk looks over at him, brow furrowed.

“For what, Todd? You didn’t electrocute me. It’s not  _ your _ fault I was in there. It was my own stupidity, my bewilderingly idiotic fucking  _ hunch _ , that led me right towards them.” His tone is bitter, and he turns to face the window again. “The  _ universe. _ ” 

Farah shifts behind them. When she speaks, her tone is even and careful.

“Why did you go, Dirk? In the diner… you said you’d only be gone for a moment, but you never came back.” 

Dirk laughs a dry, humourless laugh. In his peripherals, Todd can see his fists clenching and unclenching in his lap. This, the golden question.

“Something was wrong,” he says, his voice hollow now. Todd can tell that he’s spent the last two months wondering, wishing, cursing, probably a thousand times more than both Farah and himself. “I can’t describe it to you, it just felt… not right. And  _ stupid  _ me, I walked straight towards it, even though I knew --”

He cuts himself off, his mouth snapping shut again, but not before Todd has swivelled to face him, the car jerking slightly to the right. 

“You knew they were coming?”

Dirk doesn’t meet his eyes. He looks down into his now-still hands and takes a shuddering breath.

“I thought -- I thought since they sent Riggins after me, that they hadn’t sent Priest, that maybe -- really, I didn’t want to think about it, and everything with the Spring case happened so  _ fast -- _ ” he looks up, pleading, and Todd realizes that Dirk expects him to be mad. “It had been  _ fifteen years _ . They were never meant to get Blackwing running again! I didn’t lie.” 

Todd holds his gaze for one more second, then refocuses on the road. He feels like his heart has turned over in his chest, this new information blowing straight through him like a cold wind, and he can’t help but wonder if they had just  _ known _ … 

“I’m not mad, Dirk,” he says. “But you should have told us. That is definitely a strategic un-truth.”

Dirk stares at the side of his face, then looks forward out the windshield once more. He opens his mouth to speak a few times before actually forcing words out.

“We burned it to the ground,” he says, voice soft, “Then we ran. We knew Priest couldn’t kill us all… There were too many of us.” He sighs. “Then I got deported. Since then, the C.I.A has kept their distance. They were always watching me, but always from afar, getting me out of sticky situations like Big Brother handed me a Get Out of Jail Free card as a some sort of consolation for ruining my life. But they never came for me. I really thought it was over.”

Todd nods, unsure what to say. He thinks about the Dirk who had climbed into his window in Seattle, manic and hyper and hungry for answers, then he thinks about the sad, guilty counterpart he’d met in Bergsberg. Some things are beginning to make sense. In his mind, he hears the things Priest had said in the Cardenas house, the blame and the guilt laid at Dirk’s feet. No wonder Dirk sulks. 

Farah’s sad eyes meet his in the rear-view mirror. For months they’d been starved for answers, questions leading to questions, moved forward by blind faith alone. Now, here they are, and Dirk is safe, and Dirk can answer all of their questions, and suddenly Todd doesn’t want to know. He doesn't want to know about Blackwing, or the fucked up things they do there, doesn't want this to be their problem anymore. He wants this to Not have Happened. He glances over at Dirk. 

“How old were you? When you escaped?” 

“Twenty.” 

“And how old were you when they… when they kidnapped you?”

Dirk pauses for so long that Todd doesn’t think he’s going to answer. 

“I was eleven.”

Todd resists the urge to close his eyes, but only because he doesn’t want to crash the car and kill them all. Nine fucking years. He can’t imagine Dirk as an eleven-year-old kid, let alone a teenager, let alone a teenaged prisoner in a government fucking bunker. A weight settles onto his chest. This particular discomfort is twofold; the pain of knowing someone you care about has suffered, and the accompanying distress he experiences when he’s forced to acknowledge that he cares about someone other than Amanda. 

They’re silent until Dirk speaks again.

“If it’s all the same to you, I don’t really want to talk about this anymore.”

Farah answers for the both of them.

“It’s fine, Dirk. You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to.”

Outside, the heat is beginning to form a hazy mirage over the interstate. Todd focuses on the road swimming ahead of them, but he’s hyper-aware of Dirk sitting next to him, staring out the passengers side window, his body tense. Todd wishes he could say something comforting, maybe something encouraging, but everything he thinks of seems insufficient, so he just stays quiet. When they stop for a bathroom break ninety minutes later, Farah pulls Dirk in for a stiff, jilted hug, and when they pull apart they’ve both got tears in their eyes. Todd stands a little to the side, doing his best not to Feel too much, squinting into the distance, at the light refracting off the hot asphalt.

 

* * *

 

They cross Michigan before sunset, then head East into Ohio. After their conversation about Blackwing, the energy in the car stays low. A few hours before the streetlights come on, Mona turns into a colourful bird, apparently apropos of nothing, and scares the shit out of all of them. She then lands on Dirk’s good knee and squawks until he pets her.

It takes longer than it should for Todd to realize that the unrelenting weight on his chest is more than sadness. It increases until his breath is shallow, his lungs constricted, and begins spreading to the rest of him. He fishes his pills from his pocket and dry-swallows two, leaving only six in the bottle. He sees Dirk glance over, curious and sad, but he doesn’t say anything. The weight eases and he’s able to breathe again, but it doesn’t feel complete. Pressure is mounting in his temples, a dead give-away that he’s probably going to have an attack, so a few minutes later he tells Dirk and Farah that he’s going to find a motel.

When they pull in, he helps them both into the room, then goes back out to try Amanda’s phone again. She hasn’t responded to any of his texts, all day, and the reassurances from the more sensible parts of his brain are no longer comforting. Again, she doesn’t answer, and the headache brewing in his cranium begins to throb in earnest. As he slips out of the car he stumbles and gasps with pain, as his feet seem to believe he’s landed on a field of razor blades. Squeezing his eyes shut, he breathes through it and resentfully fumbles another two pills down the hatch. The pain does not ease, but he forces himself to trod carefully back to their room, slipping in as casually as possible.

Before Bergsberg, Farah would have picked him off in a second. He’d spent weeks trying to hide his attacks from her, trying to ride out the less painful ones, and she in turn had spent weeks watching him like a hawk. It had been a long time before they dared to circle back around to Seattle, to Amanda’s house in the suburbs, to pillage for her medications. A long stretch of time spend breaking into pharmacies, avoiding any kind of stimulus which might set him off, and being set off anyways. Like she knows the regulations of the police force, Farah generally knows when Todd has begun to hallucinate. It’s kept him honest, for the most part, and has been an honest comfort. 

But now she’s tired, medicated, and distracted by someone else’s pain, and Todd isn’t ready to tell them he’s almost out of pills, so he slips into the bathroom wordlessly to plod through the pain in private. The pain that started in his feet are now travelling up his legs, so he leans against the door and closes his eyes.  _ Prevent visual stimuli to subvert a hallucination.  _ His legs begin to shake, so he moves forward and leans against the counter. He inhales, counting, and exhales.  _ Six in, six out.  _

He opens his eyes and is greeted by his own reflection. A small, vaguely bug-eyed man looking back at him, an echo of his father, pale but otherwise healthy-looking. It would be nice, he thinks, if the thing that was going to kill him was actually  _ real.  _ Cancer, at least a doctor could see, could validate, could prove it existed. Like his aunt Esther, he could have a fatal attack and fall dead on the ground, right here, and still nobody would be able to figure out the cause of death.  _ Pararibulitis.  _ A word that means nothing. Your brain will kill itself.

“ _ Not helpful, _ ” he tells himself. His headache is reaching critical levels, so he reaches for the tap to splash cold water on his face.

And recoils when his fingertips are mangled by the intersect of razors which has replaced the knob. Cradling his hand against to chest, he screws his eyes shut again and steps away from the sink. He counts to twelve. In, out. It’s not real, but he can feel warm blood soaking his t-shirt. It’s not real, but his fingertips feel shredded.

He shuffles over to the rim of the tub and tries to ease himself down, but instead comes down heavy onto the accidentally razor sharp edge, opening a deep gash through the backs of his thighs. He feels the skin split, the nerves slashed, his legs going Offline mode for real, and lurches forward onto the floor, where he lands face-down. He spares a moment to be glad that the floor itself hasn’t turned into razors. With his good hand he forms a fist, then he puts that fist in his mouth to muffle the sounds of his half-sobs.

And it’s still not real, but it certainly feels real. A pool of blood begins to collect beneath him. The pain is nauseating. 

“Ho _ oooly shit,  _ dude, that is a lot of blood.”

The impossibility of Amanda’s voice, here, gives Todd the strength to roll over onto his back. Hissing through the pain, he finds himself looking up at her, in all her grey-leather-jacket, smudged makeup, fucked up hair glory. She is there, standing by the sink, looking down at him somberly. 

“Oh good,” he says weakly. “You’re alive.”

She gives a shaky laugh and kneels down by his head. 

“Of course I’m alive, fuckface. Nothing can kill me.”

He tries to smile at her, but he’s sure it’s more of a grimace, and she looks over him with pity. He’s beginning to feel drowsy; for the first time all day, the tight coil of anxiety within him has eased, replaced by a numbness which spreads through him, like his blood is spreading across the dingy 70’s tile. Amanda pulls his head into her lap.

“Bleeding out isn’t bad,” she says, pushing his hair back out of his face. “It won’t kill you. Once you pass out, the attack is over. Your heart won’t stop.”

He knows this, but it’s reassuring to hear her say it. Her tone is as gentle as her touch, kind and soft in a way that she hasn’t been, lately. If he had half the mind for it, Todd would be suspicious. As it is, he looks up into her brown eyes and wonders where she really is. 

“How are you here?”

“I don’t know, Todd. I really don’t.”

There’s a rap on the door. Dirk’s voice is soft and muffled. “Todd? Are you quite alright?”

Amanda looks down at Todd, who is pale as death now, her eyebrows raised slightly.

“I’m going to let him in,” she says, and Todd wants to shake his head, but he can’t find the strength to do so. He vastly prefers to suffer in private, but it’s too late, she’s already reaching for the door, turning the handle to reveal Dirk leaning against the doorframe outside. For a moment he looks confused, undoubtedly because he’s just perceived the door to have opened itself, then he sinks down next to Todd. He passes right through Amanda as though she were a ghost.

“Oh god, oh no,” he mutters, panic creeping through his voice. “Oh, Todd, no, no. What’s happening?”

“‘M bleedingout,” Todd slurs. His vision is beginning to swim.

Dirk blanches, his hands fumbling over Todd’s body, trying to locate wounds he cannot see, wounds that do not exist. “Oh no, oh no, oh no -- Farah!”

Still unseen by all but Todd, Amanda is standing by the sink again. She nudges Todd with her toe, and his eyes slip over to her.

“Tell him you’re not going to die, idiot.” 

_ Oh, right,  _ he thinks.

“D’nt worry,” he says to Dirk, who looks down at him as though he’s crazy. His hands are still fluttering over Todd’s chest. “‘M’not gonnadie.”

He loses consciousness as Farah appears in the doorway.

 

* * *

 

He feels as though he’s floating through nothingness. The longer he tries to focus on the stars overhead, the dimmer they seem to get. Slowly, he lifts his hand and holds it up in front of his face. His mangled fingers have returned to their regular calloused state. The attack has subsided. His entire body is calm, weightless, and comfortable.

He moves his head from side to side, looking, and realizes that he’s not floating at all. He’s laying on his back on the flat, shiny surface of… whatever this is. Slowly still, like he’s moving through water, he pushes himself up into a sitting position. All around him, darkness stretches out endlessly. He knows this place.

He gets to his feet and peers into the abyss, turning in a full circle, but sees nothing. Amanda has not come through with him. He is alone. Oddly, this does not fill him with panic or despair. He feels safe here, secure, as though nothing matters -- and he supposes it doesn’t, here.

He starts walking, wondering idly why he is here. Has there been a mistake or does he have a purpose? He moves forward without stopping, unsure what is driving him but driven nonetheless, walking and walking and walking forward through the darkness.

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG TO POST! I'm finally done college so it shouldn't be so long between updates again. I'm rlly eager to get this out to y'all, and very very grateful for all your kind comments and support. I only hope I can live up to your expectations! But mostly I'm having fun.


	5. Black Bear, Black Bear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the delay. If you're still holding on, thank you.

**Amanda**

* * *

 

Todd and Dirk vanish, and she’s left alone in the desert again. She brushes the reddish sand off the knee of her lengthy skirt, picks up her satchel, and casts a look around her. The image of Todd bleeding out has burned into her mind, and though she knows he’ll survive, it unnerves her. The Rowdies and Fidget -- as their newest companion has taken to calling herself -- are miles behind her, waiting in the van for her signal. Besides the sudden appearance of her brother, she’s been completely alone for hours.

She’d almost -- _almost_ \-- forgotten how upsetting a real Pararibulitis attack was. Thanks to Vogel, she hasn’t suffered from a hallucination in months. Since her time in Wendimoor, her illness has been transformed completely beyond recognition. The energy that thrums beneath her skin doesn’t terrify her anymore. She can relate only passively to the terrified lump of Todd which appeared to her in the desert sand -- for the first time in years she has control.

The wand she’d been gifted by The Boy plays no small part in this. At first she’d been hesitant to use it, scared of the power it represented, but it drew her in as though it was made for her -- in tune with her mind and soul. She can’t begin to explain how she uses it, though Cross and Gripps and Vogel have asked, all she knows is that it works. It understands her. She fishes it out of her bag now and gives it a little flick. Beneath her feet the sand begins to glow a soft blue, an almost invisible path that extends indefinitely in front of her towards the mountains -- a ley line.

In Wendimoor she learned of sacred waters, magic mirrors used to cast your mind out of your body to search and prophesy, so it had been only natural that upon returning to her own realm she continue the practise. Unfortunately the waters of her home reality seem to be too mundane to conduct the caliber of prophecy she wants -- and needs. Everything is murky, no matter how hard she focuses. Even more unfortunately is that the lack of quality does not equate to a lack of pain -- every time she’d tried to scry (fresh water, salt water, hard water, soft water) the pain of the search overwhelmed her before she could get much of anything at all. Not the Rowdies nor the wand could help her see past the flashes. Faces, places, random objects, all of it lacked context.

But there’s one thing that comes to her with laser precision, one thing that she feels with certainty. She’s meant to be in this desert. A sudden understanding of ley lines. With the wand in her hand, she can feel the current of energy pulling her. She’s meant to find this path, because there is something at the end that will help her to See. She pulls herself together, casting Todd’s attack from her mind, and continues on her path.

She walks until the sun begins to set, following the line through rocky embankments until the light grows too dim to see. She holds her wand over her head and sends a bright spark of red light shooting into the sky, where it bursts into a hundred smaller sparks. They hang suspended in the air above her, the signal that the Rowdies have been waiting for all day.

She sits in the dirt and waits for them to find her.

 

 

**Farah**

* * *

 

 

Between the two of them they’re able to get Todd out of the bathroom, but the effort of helping Dirk haul him onto one of the beds reopens the gunshot wound in Farah’s abdomen. Through her own fit of agony, she checks and double-checks that Todd’s pulse exists; then takes four ibuprofen and lies flat on her back, clutching fresh gauze to the wound, waiting for the bleeding and the pain to subside.

Dirk is a ball of nervous energy. He stands between Todd and Farah, favouring his left leg and wringing his hands together until Farah instructs him to stop hovering. He limps his way over to the armchair against the opposite wall, and as he sinks into it another human body materializes at Todd’s bedside.

“Is he okay?” Mona asks. She leans over Todd, her nose only inches from his, while Farah and Dirk recover from the violent start she had caused them both. “His energy is very strange.”

“He’ll be fine,” Farah says, for Dirk as much as Mona, knowing she’s the only one with enough lived experience to make such a claim. “He’ll be unconscious for a few hours while his body recuperates, and he’ll feel like shit when he wakes up, but he’ll recover.”

She doesn’t add that this is actually a best case scenario type of situation, or that he easily could have died, and she definitely doesn’t express how glad she is that there was no screaming this time. These are thoughts that only resonate with her. Still leaning too-close over his motionless figure, Mona lifts a hand and prods Todd in the chest. Dirk shifts forward in his seat, then winces and aborts the motion.

“Maybe don’t, um, do that, Mona,” he says, peering past her at Todd. “What do you mean his energy feels strange? What’s strange about it?”

Mona shrugs.

“I don’t know,” she says. “It’s strange.”

“He’s just… sick,” Dirk says, but Farah hears the uncertainty in his voice. She remembers the first time she’d witnessed one of Todd’s attacks, the day Dirk was taken, and the horror that had vibrated under her skin for hours afterwards.

Finally Mona straightens up. She’s still standing exactly where she’d materialized, transformed from a bug or a fleck of dust, Farah doesn’t know. She looks at Dirk for a moment, then cocks her head.

“You’re upset.”

“Yes, well,” he looks away, flushing under her scrutiny, and mutters something that sounds to Farah like ‘things are upsetting'. They are similar in this way, she thinks, the both of them having a limited reservoir for emotional honesty. She guesses that he’s already used his for the day.

“Would you like me to be a dog?” Mona asks. “I can be any kind of dog. Dogs make people happy.”

Charmed despite herself by Mona’s narrow understanding of human emotions, Farah smiles. Dirk stares at Mona for a long second before answering, his blush continuing up into his cheeks until he says -- “A black bear. Can you be a black bear?”

Which is how Dirk ends up asleep in the armchair, his feet stretched out on the massive bear curled in front of him. Between the pain, the blood (on and off all night, every time she moves), and her proclivity to keep an eye on Todd’s unconscious form, Farah hardly sleeps all night.

 

* * *

 

An hour after sunrise, Todd wakes up with a groan and promptly rolls over to dry-heave. He catches sight of Mona-the-bear, gives a shrill squawk, and scrambles backwards before Farah can explain. This of course startles the bear (Mona) and Dirk into wakefulness as well, and Todd continues to scramble away from them until Mona shifts from a bear to golden retriever, at which point he stops dead, clutching his chest, and looks between the three of them.

“A bear?”

The golden retriever jumps onto his bed.

Having rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, Dirk hobbles out of his chair and deposits himself on the bed with Todd and Mona-the-dog, reaching forward to press his fingers against the pulse point at Todd’s jugular. Todd bats away his fretful hands.

“I have a pulse, Dirk.”

“Are you feeling alright?” Dirk lets his hands be pushed away, but leans forward to peer directly into Todd’s eyes. Todd ducks away from him, shifting uncomfortably.

“I’m fine,” he says, then notices Farah lying prone on her back, hands clasped over her stomach. “What happened?”

“I popped a stitch.”

She is prepared for the way his face falls, the guilt that crowds into his expression all at once. His attacks often have had the effect of sending him into a black hole of self loathing, from which it can be difficult to extract him, so she is also prepared to brush off her relatively severe injury. For morale.

“It’s not your fault, Todd. And it’s not that bad. Don't worry.”

But worry Todd does, his pitiful expression only deepening, his gaze heavy as it sweeps over Farah’s figure and lands on her abdomen. “I skipped a dose,” he confesses. “It _was_ my fault. I’m sorry. By the time I took the pills it was too late.”

Still very much crowding Todd, Dirk gasps a little dramatically. “ _Why_ would you skip a dose? That’s incredibly irresponsible, Todd! You could have died!”

With an irritated look, Todd places a hand on Dirk’s chest and pushes until he’s out of Todd’s Personal Space Radius. Dirk falls back without a fight, but continues to look mildly incensed on behalf of Todd’s health even as he begins stroking Mona-the-dog’s head.

“I’m sorry,” Todd repeats. “It was stupid, stupid thing, I know, I just... I’m almost out of anti-psychotics, and I was trying to save them.”

Farah, who had deduced as much, sighs. “How much do you have left?”

Todd returns her sigh. “Two doses.”

She feels her gut clench in a way that has nothing to do with her stitches, a feeling that is accompanied by a strong surge of annoyance. Two doses gives them barely a day to solve the problem. Two doses means Todd should have said something four doses ago.

Dirk, it seems, feels similarly. He crosses his arms. “Excuse me, Todd, but that seems like a _strategic non-truth_ to me. Was it not twenty hours ago you made the exceptional point that we should tell each other pertinent information?”

“I know,” Todd sinks back into the pillows, properly shamed. “I'm sorry, okay? I am. It was stupid. I'm sorry.”

He looks over at Farah as the apologies spill out. Begrudgingly, she feels her anger ebb -- he’s begun to have this effect on her, over the time they’ve been together. His earnestness outweighs his stupidity on the scales of her heart. Still, she chides herself for neglecting to count his pills herself when they left Bergsberg.

“You can’t keep things from us,” she echoes, hardening her voice to keep him humble. “You have to be honest. We’re in this together.”

“I know,” Todd says. “I won’t do it again. I swear. And there's still some Xanax. It should work okay in a pinch, Amanda used to use Valium when we couldn't afford her meds --”

He stops abruptly, his eyes slipping off of her and out of focus. For a horrible moment Farah thinks he’s going to suffer another attack, but then he turns to Dirk.

“Amanda was there,” he says. “During my attack. I could see her, just like in Bergsberg. She opened the door for you to come in.”

Despite all the crazier shit she’s had to accept as reality Farah feels her skepticism holding out, even as Dirk’s face lights up. She’s not sure, even now, that Todd’s vision of Amanda at the Cardenas house was anything more than a hallucination. After months of searching for her, to no avail, a telepathic connection seems… unrealistically convenient.

Once more, Dirk forgets about the concept of personal space, grabbing Todd by the shoulders. “The door opened by itself. You were on the floor, but it opened!”

“It was Amanda!” Todd allows Dirk to pull him up out of the pillows, not bothering to push him off this time. They both look at Farah, and it’s almost comical, a reminder of a relatively simpler time, two _sane guys_ doing _normal things_. Still, she levels them with a reasoning look.

“Dirk, are you sure you didn’t just… open the door?”

“I locked the door,” Todd says, as Dirk says “The door was locked.”

Farah can’t argue with them. She’d been mostly asleep upon arriving at the motel the night before, ready to crash right into medicated oblivion until Dirk’s cry had brought her to the bathroom. She looks between their faces and sighs.

“Well,” she says, “there’s only one person who can corroborate your version of events.”

Dirk makes an ‘Aha!’ sound and shimmies across the bed to grab a phone off the nightstand, jostling Mona-the-dog as he does so. She promptly morphs into a small plush toy. Dirk dials what Farah assumes is Amanda’s number and holds up the phone between them as the connection sound rings tinnily out of the speaker.

She answers on the third ring. “Hello?”

Todd grabs the phone. “Amanda?”

“Todd, I’m so sorry, I should have called you back. Are you okay?”

Dirk looks over at Farah, his face arranged as if to say, _See?_ Farah purses her lips at him.

“I’m fine. Listen, this might be crazy, but -- you were there right? You were in the bathroom last night, and you let Dirk in?”

“Yeah dude, I was! You’re not crazy! Well, not in this specific instance, at least.”

“Ha!” Dirk excitedly jabs his finger in Farah’s direction, then Todd’s, twisting his body in a strange victory dance. “One point to Dirk Gently for team Todd Can Do Magic!”

Farah rolls her eyes while Todd gives Dirk a withering look. There’s static from Amanda’s end as she adjusts the phone. “What?”

“Ignore him,” Todd says. “Where are you?”

“Nevada. What about you guys? Am I on speaker?”

“You are,” Farah says. “Hi. We’re in Ohio.”

“Hi, Farah,” Amanda says brightly, and Farah feels a rush of affection. “Is Dirk there?”

“I am, hello,” Dirk says, taking the opportunity to snatch the phone back out of Todd’s hand. “How did you get into our bathroom? Were you having a vision?”

“No! I was just walking in the desert, and suddenly Todd was there, then I heard a knock and suddenly there was a door and you were there. Then Todd passed out and you were both gone.”

“And the Rowdy 3 weren’t with you?” He questions further, dodging Todd as he tries to get the phone back. He eases his feet over the side of the bed and sits with his elbows on his knees.

“Nope, I was all alone.”

Todd follows Dirk to the edge of the bed, scowling at the receiver. “Why were you in the desert alone?”

Amanda huffs a laugh. “Cut the big brother act, Todd, I’m gagging.”

“What are you guys doing in Nevada?” Farah asks, pushing herself into a sitting position slowly and hoping that the blood in her wound has clotted by now. She’ll need to re-bandage soon, but the need for information, for anything relevant at all, nags at her urgently. “Have you seen any trace of Blackwing?”

There is a pause long enough that Todd begins to repeat the question, but Amanda cuts him off. “I’m looking for something. I have to follow a ley line, but I’m not entirely sure… what it is I’m looking for.”

Dirk props the phone on the nightstand between them so he can run his hand along his jaw. “What is a ley line? Where did you see it? How do you know about it? How do you know you’re going the right direction?

“A ley line is like an energy highway,” Amanda explains. “Where magic can travel a little more freely. I don’t know how to explain it, I just know. I think whatever I’m looking for will help me See clearer.”

Dirk is nodding, his face pulled into an quintessential _Dirk-solves-a-Mystery_ expression. “And you were on the ley line when you came across Todd?” He asks.

“Yup.”

Dirk hums.“And _do_ you think that --”

“What about Blackwing?” Todd cuts him off, veering them away from the _magics_ portion of the discussion. Farah is glad. “Have you seen them?”

There’s another pause before Amanda answers, her hesitance audible. “We led them to the desert, but they turned back yesterday.”

“What?!” Farah and Todd lead a chorus of disbelief.

“ _Relax_ , guys! It’s fine!” Amanda’s voice urges them from the speaker. “We were leading them away from you! The guys can smell those nasty fucks a mile off, and I’ve been scrambling their signals with my wa -- powers so they’d never catch up to us. I had a vision, it told me we were supposed to do it.”

Todd scoffs. “What do you mean you were supposed to? Why would you bait them? What the hell kind of--”

“I’ve been meditating, Todd! I have a purpose to fulfill, and it’s not my place to question the how or the why! Besides, they pulled their forces back yesterday. The guys could smell them leaving, all confused and pissed off and shit.”

Rubbing a hand through his hair, Todd huffs irritably and stands. Only a few months ago, Farah knows, he would have berated her -- but today’s Todd is more afraid of losing his sister again than he is angry about her destiny. Farah watches him, vaguely impressed, as he beats down the urge to play the older brother. He turns away from them and paces to the end of the bed.

“Is there anything else?” Farah asks. “Anything about where they might be headed?”

“I’ve been seeing a lot in like, clips and directions, but it doesn’t really make sense.” Amanda says. “I can’t control my visions that well here, it’s not like in Wendimoor… it’s just flashes.” She pauses. “I’m sorry.”

Farah turns this over in her mind. Anxiety is beginning to bubble in her chest, and she wants to address it without alarming the boys -- but gauging by the look on Dirk’s face, it’s already too late for that.

“But you guys are in Ohio, right?” Amanda continues after a long moment. “They couldn’t make it across the country in a day.”

Dirk’s face contorts, his expression caught between amusement and desperation. “They’re the C.I.A,” he says, an edge of hysterics to his voice. “They could be anywhere. They have more branches of surveillance than a spider has legs, more agents than a corpse has flies. More --”

He doesn’t get to finish whatever strange simile is coming next. There’s a crash on Amanda’s end of the call, followed by a loud whooping.

“What’s going on over there?” Todd asks.

“Gripps needs to destroy something every few hours or he’ll suffer a brain hemorrhage,” Amanda says shortly. “Listen, don’t you guys worry, okay? I’m going to find this -- whatever it is -- and I’ll track them down. I’ll look out for you, I promise.”

Dirk shakes his head, and Farah can tell that he’s far past reassurances. She meets Todd’s eye from across the room and sees apprehension in him. She tries to keep her expression even, calm, reassuring.

“Thanks Amanda,” she says. “We’ll keep you informed of anything we find out.”

 _As though you have any leads_ , says a nasty voice in her head. It sounds like her father.

“Keep in touch, okay?” Todd says. “Call me.”

“I will, bro. Don’t do anything stupid in the meantime. Bye.”

The call ends, and they’re left in silence. The sun is shining through the thin white curtains, reminding them that a new day has begun its proceedings without them. Farah’s abdomen is throbbing, her wound warm with pain and begging to be dealt with. She puts her head back and closes her eyes, wishes for one single moment of peace.

“It probably doesn’t mean anything,” Todd is saying. “Dirk, think about it logically. We didn’t know where they were before and we don’t know now, right? It doesn’t really change anything.”

She hears Dirk make a bitter noise. “Oh yes, Todd, you’re right, _logic_ has done a great deal to service me, of course we’ll be _fine_. It means _nothing_ that Blackwing has turned around and are headed straight for us.”

“There’s no way you can know that. Dirk! What’re you --”

Farah opens her eyes as Dirk struggles to his feet. Todd moves to help him, but Dirk shrugs him off. “No, no, don’t help me. You shouldn’t be here. I need to -- I have to go. I have to go far away, you shouldn’t be around me, this is a mistake -- leave me while you still can, I'm dog meat anyways. I’ll only get you killed, I -- I can’t --”

Todd meets Farah’s gaze, his expression all but resigned. Between them, Dirk continues to ramble, his hands flailing wildly in front of him as he explains that he needs to get on a flight to Lebanon or Mexico or Thailand. With a considerable amount of effort, a hand clamped tightly over her stomach, Farah shifts to sit on the edge of her bed.

“Dirk,” she says. He quits his rhapsodizing at the sound of her voice, turning on his heel to face her. “I say this with love, okay? I need you to shut up.”

Apparently deliberating between obeying and arguing, Dirk opens and closes his mouth a few times -- then visibly wilts. He puts a hand over his face. “We’re all going to die,” he says from behind it.

“Nobody is going to die,” she tells him. “You need to stop and breathe, okay? Panicking won’t help anything. When’s the last time you changed your bandage?” His unsure expression is answer enough, so she uses her free hand to point at the bathroom. “Go change it. And stop thinking about Blackwing.”

He hesitates for a moment, and then limp-marches his way to the bathroom. When he shuts the door, Todd calls after him. “If you try to climb out the window in there, I’ll kill you myself!”

“Not helpful,” Farah intones quietly, but there’s no real bite to it.

He shrugs, then moves to her side, kneeling down to look into her face. “Are you okay?”

Rather than answering, she puts a hand on his shoulder and leverages herself to her feet, almost knocking him over in the process. He recovers quickly and stands, snaking an arm around her waist, for which she is begrudgingly thankful.

“We need to get back on the road,” she says. “Take your meds so you can drive. When he’s done in there, pack up the room. I have to change my bandages.”

“Farah, are you sure you don’t want to just… you know, rest? You look --”

“No,” she cuts him off. “We need to get out of here.”

To her great relief, he doesn’t argue with her. When Dirk re-emerges, Todd helps her into the bathroom, leaves her alone, and closes the door behind him. Farah hears him order Dirk into the car as she sags onto the closed lid of the toilet seat. With shaky hands, she lifts her shirt and pulls away the bandage stuck to her wound. Underneath, the skin is pink and swollen and torn where the stitch pulled through -- it starts to bleed when she lifts the old bandage away, and she reaches for a fresh gauze pad. She presses it against the gash with a ragged breath, gritting her teeth through the pain. Once she has secured a fresh bandage over the gauze, she takes a deep breath and forces herself to her feet. Her reflection in the mirror sways, ashen.

It’s going to be a long fucking day.

 

**Amanda**

* * *

 

 

After she hangs up the entire conversation plays over in her head, the promise she made them ringing in her ears. Her promise, and Dirk’s doubt. Though she knows Farah and Todd are up shit creek with him, it’s Dirk’s past that hunts them across state lines, Dirk’s demons haunting them. She remembers the helpless look on his face in the throne room, when he was faced with returning to Blackwing… it was this she had been thinking of when they decided to lead them out of Bergsberg.

There had been no vision, no reassurance that everything would be fine, just determination and a deep hope on her part that Dirk’s power would get them to safety. Lying to Todd about it had been an easy answer to his mother-henning. She feels no guilt. As long as he believes in magic, she could tell him just about anything was _supposed_ to happen, and he couldn’t argue with her. Or maybe he just wouldn’t. She likes it that way.

She joins the group back at the van when the call is done, and they set out into the desert soon after. Martin insists on coming along -- probably sensing the tension in her shoulders, the feeling of desperation that she’d woken up with -- and Vogel follows. Amanda’s noticed in the week or so since they reunited with the rest of the Rowdies that he has a difficult time being apart from her. She’s not sure if it concerns or endears her. The two of them and Fidget follow her down the glowing path of the ley line. The heat is oppressive, and Amanda is drenched in sweat. She’d left her leather jacket behind, but she’s beginning to wish she’d followed Martin’s lead and done away with her shirt as well. They walk at a steady pace, falling into step with one another.

“How’s Pint-Size doin’?” Martin asks after about a mile. This is what he calls Todd. It surprises her that Martin cares about Todd’s well-being. She’d told them all about her unplanned company the day before, but the Rowdies as a whole had been pretty unimpressed with him since she’d told them about his life of lies.

“He’s fine,” she says dismissively. “He can call me to complain when ants eat his face.”

Martin nods, taking her at face value, as he always does. Most people would cringe away from her brand of humour. “And how’re you feelin’?”

She huffs a laugh.“I’m tired. I’m sweaty. I’m ready to find whatever it is we’re here to see.” This last sentiment she casts up into the sky, hoping the Universe will take a hint.

“Really?” He asks, eyebrows raised. Not breaking stride, he leans in a little and sniffs the air around her. “Cause you smell a little… nervous.”

Unbidden, a shiver runs down the length of her spine. She scowls at him as she shakes it off, feeling silly, then elbows him in his bare ribs for good measure. He doesn’t react, still surveying her with a calculated expression.

“I’m fine,” she says. “There’s just… something. A feeling.” The feeling is anxiety. In her old life, she would have been scared it might trigger an attack -- now she hopes for it, for a glimpse of what she’s looking for.

Vogel is jogging rather than walking alongside them, his energy undeterred by the heat. “Do you think the something is good, Boss? Or bad?”

Amanda sighs. “I don’t know, Vogel. It could be nothing. I’m not sure.”

He looks like he’s going to ask more questions, but Martin cuts him off. “Why don’t you go scout up ahead, Vogel?”

Vogel groans audibly before skipping ahead, a reaction that exhausts Amanda just for its proximity. She fiddles with her wand, a reassuring weight in her hands, and the line beneath them increases then fades in intensity. Martin seems to be deep in thought, and they walk quietly again as Fidget wanders along behind them, sniffing rocks and muttering to herself.

“What about the other ones?” Martin asks suddenly after a quarter of an hour. “The crazy psychic and the one with the hair.”

It takes Amanda a moment to realize he’s talking about Dirk and Farah. She looks sideways at him, scrutinizing, before she shrugs. “I told them about Blackwing,” she says. “Dirk thinks they’re going to go after him.”

“Well, Drummer,” Martin swings his bat at his side, “I know you don’t wanna hear it, but there’s a hot chance that’s exactly where they’re headed. May as well just accept it.”

She casts him a sour look. “I can’t just accept it. I told him I would look out for them. It’s my responsibility to keep them safe.”

“Ah,” Martin breathes, with the air of having figured something out. “I see.”

She straightens her shoulders and looks forward, getting the feeling that she may have revealed her hand. Then again, what’s the point of keeping secrets from an emotion-sniffing vampire-man? If she’s leaning heavily into the _only-you-can-save-the-Universe_ narrative, he’s gonna know one way or another. When she doesn’t respond, Martin nudges her side.

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” he says. “That kid’s been on his own a long time… real long. He’s done a good job of keepin’ himself alive this far. The Universe, an’ all that jazz.”

She chews on her lip a moment, wishing that she felt comforted by this -- instead it just makes her sad. “Things are different now,” she says. “Don’t you feel it?”

He pauses long enough that she looks up at him, squinting into the bright sun. He’s looking ahead with his mouth set into a frown. “Yeah,” he says. “I s’pose I do.”

Something occurs to her, something she hadn’t considered before. “You knew Dirk, didn’t you?” She asks. “Back then. During the first Blackwing.”

He hesitates again, and for a moment she thinks she’s crossed a line into unspoken territory. Then he grunts. “We weren’ allowed to mingle, like some of the other freaks. Only allowed to be amongst ourselves. We were too dangerous, see, posed a threat to ‘em. Didn’ meet him ‘til the breakout -- whole thing tasted like fear, real terror, the stuff you only get when it’s down to the wire, like life or death. Delicious. Couldn’t make out the taste o’ one kid from another.”

“But you knew him?”

“We ran into him, afterwards. A few months later. We were starvin’. Feedin’ on normies is no good, fucks ‘em right up… they don’t bounce back. So we tried to abstain, but it hurt like hell. We could taste Gently a mile off. Tasted real good. Real young. Real scared. Vogel was just a kid, ‘round five. He had to eat.”

Amanda looks at her feet, her leather boots covered in sand as they plod on. Vogel was five. A child. She glances up at him, walking a yard ahead of them, unaware of their conversation. He holds a hand up to block the sun from his eyes. He couldn’t be more than twenty now.

“So you fed on Dirk.”

Martin sighs. “I’m not proud of everythin’ I’ve done, Drummergirl. But I did what I had to to provide for my boys.”

“Was he scared?”

“Oh yeah. Had to be. He hated us, still does I reckon -- but it doesn’ screw us freaks in the head, the way it does normal folk. Makes ‘em tired, drained, but they recover. We’d stick around, too, make sure nothin’ came after him while he was like that, but he never knew. Couldn’t tell him, or he’d stop bein’ afraid, and we’d stop eatin’. We checked in every few weeks, get our fill. Right up ‘til he up’n disappeared ‘bout a year after the breakout. Never knew what happened to him.”

Amanda says nothing for a long time. She wonders what it was like, for Dirk, for the Rowdies, all the other people -- kids, a lot of them, she knows -- who were kidnapped and tortured and then left all alone in the world. She feels a sudden pit of anger open in her stomach, clenches her fist around her wand. “Fuck them,” she says, ley line glowing bright beneath them. “Fuck Blackwing.”

Martin laughs under his breath. “Amen, sister.”

They walk on until another thought occurs to her. “So what did you do after?” She asks. Martin raises his eyebrows questioningly, so she elaborates. “If you couldn’t feed on normal people, what did you do after Dirk disappeared?”

“Ah,” he says, and smirks at her, “I guess you could say… we found the right people. People who really _earned_ it.”

She nods her head, sweat dripping down her temple, and processes this. After a long minute she asks, “How’d you decide who earned it?”

“I used my better judgement.”

They stop talking after this. The desert gives way to rockier terrain.. Amanda finds herself driven by thoughts of righting the injustice, of tearing Blackwing apart and burning the pieces to ash -- where she had been tired before, she feels only determination. She finishes her second water bottle, marches on, and the mountain looms ever nearer. She begins to hope that their destination is within view. The sun is high in the sky, beating down on them with August intensity. There is no more conversation for over an hour. Finally, up ahead, Vogel stops.

“Uh, Boss?” He points at the mountainside. “What’s he doing here?”

She crosses the distance between them with a few strides, following his gaze to a narrow crevice in the rocks where a path is barely visible. It takes her a moment to see him, though he’s dressed in a bright white tunic, and when she does she takes an involuntary step backwards into Martin.

“What the --” Martin growls when he sees the man, then steps in front of the rest of them protectively.

The man in white doesn’t react to their collective gaze. He stares at them from between the rocks, motionless. Besides his garb he looks the same as he had in Seattle. Buff, chiselled, sandy blonde hair arranged on top of his head like an asshole.

“That’s impossible,” Amanda says quietly. “We saw them turn back -- he --”

"I can't smell him," Vogel says, his voice small and scared. "Why didn't we smell him?"

Suddenly the man turns on his heel and disappears down the path. She meets Martin’s eye and finds confusion in his face, feels it mirrored on her own. She should be afraid, she thinks, they should all be afraid -- but instead, relief is passing slowly through her. She doesn't understand. She feels a tug on her shirt, looks down at the rainbow beast.

“Him, follou,” she grunts, pointing after the man and shuffling from foot to foot anxiously.

Martin takes her by the arms, turns her so that they’re face to face. “What do you mean, girly?”

Fidget wiggles out of his grasp. “Dum dum,” she says, pointing again. “Him wegodda follou, n’do mowden go.”

“She says we gotta go into the mountain,” Vogel translates, standing close behind Amanda. He glances nervously between the beast and the path. “She says that we have to follow him.”

Amanda and Martin lock eyes again. He raises his eyebrows. “It’s your call, Boss.”

She holds his gaze a moment more, then turns away, towards the mountain path. “It’s okay,” she says, hoping she’s not wrong. “I don’t think he wants to hurt us.”

“Alright,” Martin swings his bat into his hand. “Send for the boys. Vogel, you stay here with beasty to wait for Cross’n’Gripps. Drummer and I will follow the douchebag.”

Vogel looks like he wants to argue, bouncing on his heels anxiously, so Amanda takes his hand. “It’s okay, Vogel,” she tells him. “If it's an ambush, we'll send for you. I’ll leave a trail. If we’re not back in an hour, follow us.”

She sends a spark into the sky, where it bursts and hangs over their heads. Cross and Gripps will be on their way. With a shaky breath and a smile in the beast’s direction, she and Martin set off, shoulder to shoulder, after Friedkin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you think the rainbow monster's name suits her? comment n let me know


End file.
